


Death Takes A Holiday: The Falls of Niagara

by LyraNgalia, rude_not_ginger



Series: Death Takes A Holiday [8]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Action/Adventure, Attempted Murder, Belligerent Sexual Tension, Blackmail, Coersion, Drunk Sex, F/M, Gen, Gun Violence, Kidnapping, Misunderstandings, Murder, Mutual Masturbation, Oral Sex, Revenge, Threats of Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-16
Updated: 2015-05-23
Packaged: 2018-03-18 02:49:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 41,782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3553256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LyraNgalia/pseuds/LyraNgalia, https://archiveofourown.org/users/rude_not_ginger/pseuds/rude_not_ginger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Leaving Toronto and Montreal behind, Irene Adler turns to her plan of usurping Jim Moriarty's network for herself. But can she trust Sherlock Holmes to keep Sebastian Moran alive? Or will an impulsive decision made in grief by Sherlock spell the end of their partnership?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Something like Longing

**Author's Note:**

> Please see [_Death Takes A Holiday: In the Shadow of the Black Mountain_](http://archiveofourown.org/works/694742) for notes/explanations on the peculiarities of this fic's writing style.

The silence on the drive is not as stifling as some long, silent drives Sherlock had taken with John Watson in the past. John, who had never properly learned how to drive at all, was often rather irritated that Sherlock was in control of the car, and would end up quite cross. Sherlock, in his own way, would end up cross as well (particularly because it was not _his_ fault that John did not know how to drive properly). Then again, John could have also been angry about something else, but that was often impossible to deduce considering his "cross faces" were all very similar. The drive with John would be long and boring, in a car that felt like it needed the windows lowered to let some of the air in.  
  
The silence on drive with the Woman is _different_. It doesn't feel as though it's stifling, nor does it feel like it's too confined. The Woman has the windows lowered, she's not crammed in the seat next to him, and if he simply looks out at the open road, it's as though he's completely alone. Yet, all the same, there is a level of _anticipation_ to the silence. She's admitted something, he has yet to act on it. He feels as though he should, he should do _something_ , but he has yet to decide what that something is. Placing the options of leaving versus staying into two equal sized columns ends him with an equal number of positives and negatives. Positives including: move faster, more independence, less time wasted on sexual activities, complete destruction of web faster, no opportunities for the Woman to betray. Negatives including: Less assistance, no secondary deductive equation in situations, destruction of web means murder rather than usurping (in the Woman's case), no more insight as to what potential targets might 'like'. He keeps wanting to put on _No reason to go to Vienna_ on the negative list, but he had no reason to go to Vienna prior, so there wouldn't be a reason even if he stayed with the Woman.  
  
There is a final tipping point that could go into the negative category if he'd let it, but he is quite adamant about _not_ allowing it to enter his mind. He'd miss her.  
  
He turns onto Main Street in Niagara Falls. Despite their dalliances, they are still dramatically early, which Sherlock decides is probably for the best. He pulls into a cafe across the street from a bed and breakfast and steps out, still silent.

 

Her phone is a lump of lead in her pocket, the single plane ticket and the weight of a single quiet word both heavy in her mind. The drive had been silent, and as the miles passed, the thought of Moscow returns. Despite the fact that he had not answered, despite the fact that anticipation still hung palpable in the air between them, Irene finds her mind going back to Moscow, steeling herself for the trip.  
  
The reminder of the last time she had so irrevocably lost was still vivid in her mind, as well as his parting words.  
  
_Sorry about dinner._  
  
And she refuses to be left that vulnerable, that exposed and desperate by him again.  
  
Her hand is in her pocket, turning the phone around between her fingers, when the car slows and stops. The sudden lack of lulling motion rouses her out of her thoughts, and she looks up, surprised. Her legs are still drawn up to her chest, and for the first time since they'd spoken, she realizes how long the drive has been, and how her body will no doubt protest.  
  
She looks up, and stubborn pride keeps her precisely where she is, keeps her from moving and betraying any more weakness. "Surely you can manage a civil goodbye this time," she tells him mildly.

 

"We're not quite there yet," he says.  
  
_There_ is the flexible word, the dependent variable. There could mean the Falls themselves, it could also mean the civility of the goodbye. It could also mean the goodbye itself. When he looks back at her, he sees her legs still drawn up, her hair wild. She is not the same dominatrix that purred at him in her London home, but she is far from a wilting flower. That defiant glint in her eye makes the decision for him.  
  
He steps forward, entering the small shop. He needs cigarettes, coffee, and without much thought he grabs a packet of Tylenol from the impulse buy rack. He glances back outside. With John, or with Lestrade, he could tell if they would be out there when he returned. With the Woman, however, he finds himself _hoping_.

 

_Yet_.  
  
A reminder that soon this _was_ going to end, that any answer he gave would simply be delaying the inevitable. And she thinks that perhaps she should not have asked, that ready or not, leaving The Woman as she is with him behind now would probably be better than letting it linger, than letting him worm his way under her skin even more than he already has.  
  
Perhaps.  
  
She watches him go, and she can see the little things that have changed about him since Belgravia, the way the veneer of the consulting detective has worn thin in the set of his shoulders (the gunshot wound still evidently bothering him), in the change in his step that she can only describe as uncertain. She expects he has observed those in her too, like the faint ridges of a pair of long-healed impulsive piercings.  
  
He disappears into the shop, and when he is out of sight, Irene unfolds her legs, wincing in irritation as contracted muscles pulled in protest. The fact that it was a predicament of her own doing does not make the situation any better as she pulls herself out of the car and leans against it, stretching slowly and deliberately, her face turned up towards the sky, listening to the distant roar of water.

 

He steps outside, two coffees in hand, and a map under one shoulder. The good shoulder. He aches from the long ride, and his mind can't help but remind him that cocaine would work to take away the pain. Take away the pain, but he'd lose the focus. He needs the focus now.

He offers her one of the lidded cups, which has a packet of fake white powdered creamer sitting atop it.

"They didn't have milk," he says. The pack of Tylenol is under the packet of creamer.

 

She does not answer immediately, still intent on the sound of crashing water and her own thoughts for a moment, but when she turns and sees what he offers, a smile, small and genuine, pulls at her lips. "I'll live without," she answers, her fingers brushing his hand as she accepts the coffee. The smile deepens a touch as she discards the packet of creamer to find the painkillers underneath.  
  
She palms the packet before curling her fingers around the cup, and arches an eyebrow at him. "Yourself?"  
  
She expects he knows she doesn't mean the coffee.

 

Her fingers touch his, and he wonders if this is what real longing is like. They don't want to admit to wanting each other---this is the sort of nonsense that Sherlock expects from the novels John's girlfriends read. Yet, he's feeling it in the way he doesn't pull away from her touch. He taps his cigarette pack against his wrist a few times before opening it and taking one out. He lights the cigarette, taking in a breath of it and relishing in the taste and sensation.  
  
"Why did you mention Vienna?" he asks. "I wasn't aware that was on our itinerary."

 

She hears his answer in his question, in the almost casual way the itinerary has once again become _theirs_ rather than his or hers. It is how they understand each other, not in words, because words are obvious and difficult and proof to use against one another in moments of anger and weakness, but in the silence, in the unspoken, in the clues gleaned that anyone else would miss.  
  
She shrugs, and takes a sip of the coffee. It lingers on her tongue, black, with just enough sugar to round out the bitterness but not mask it. Exactly how she likes it, when there isn't cream to be had. "I spent some time in Vienna, before leaving for Montenegro. One of their police officers is rather sharp. Prone to seeing ghosts." Another sip of the coffee, and she gives him a sidelong look. "It'd make resurrection unpredictable."

 

"Oddly enough, I have a contact in Vienna I need to speak with," he says. This is not entirely a lie, but its far enough from the truth that were he talking to John Watson, he might get shouted at later for it.  
  
"I think it's a convenient stop off for the both of us," he says. "On our way to Moscow."  
  
And like that, he's found himself with a decision. He does not want to leave her. He is making himself vulnerable, but he's far more wary. He knows she can vanish at a moment's notice, and he knows she knows where his writeup of the web is hidden. He won't forget that.

 

She studies him out of the corner of her eye, and says nothing at his mention of Moscow. She doesn't have to. Instead she takes another sip of coffee, and remains leaning against the side of the car.  
  
The acrid bite of his cigarette is familiar, now, and she allows herself the moment to rip open the packet of Tylenol, to swallow a pair of tablets with a sip of hot coffee before asking lightly, "Living dangerously now, Mr. Holmes?"

 

He lets his lip upturn at her question. He watches her take the medication, drink the coffee. Trust him to give her real Tylenol and coffee that isn't laced with anything that might incapacitate or hurt her. Thinking on it, that would have actually been the best bet. Then take out Moran while she was safe in the car. Of course, she must know that isn't his plan.  
  
She is unbelievably alluring. Her hair, wild from the wind, is like the tattered curtains at a crime scene, and the shade of her lips like a blood stain across a white tile floor. Her words can bite more harshly than his healing wounds, and he _likes_ that. She must know he does.  
  
Living dangerously. "When did I ever stop?"

 

There are a hundred things she expects from him, thousands that she considers him capable of, but, perhaps ironically, drugging her is not one that crosses her mind. Theirs is the battle, the push and pull and the force of wills, and drugs would have been too easy, too obvious. It had not been that way in Belgravia, but then they are not exactly as they had been then either.  
  
They may be again, but this was a holiday.  
  
She laughs, a single quiet chuckle, and shrugs, pushing a lock of windswept hair behind her ear. "It seemed possible that you might, a few minutes ago."

 

"I thought you were going to turn on me," he replies. "You do have history." There's no real malice in his words. She _does_ have history, and he truly doesn't want to feel that sense of complete betrayal.  
  
He passes his coffee to his hand with the cigarette, and reaches out to further tuck that lock of hair behind her ear.  
  
"I would rather not be too _obvious_."

 

His touch is warm against her skin, no doubt a result of the coffee he'd been holding, and Irene finds herself unconsciously leaning into it. She catches herself, a second or two too late. She says nothing about _history_ , because it is the truth and to be anything but accepting of it is to be sentimental, to be vulnerable.  
  
Still, she smirks, genuine pleasure warring with the arch amusement that is her usual mode with him. "You're rarely _completely_ obvious."  
  
It's a compliment, mostly.

 

"Trust is an idiotic concept we should both avoid at all costs," he says. Yet he likes the way she moves into his touch, and he likes knowing that she isn't afraid of him, that she knows he won't hurt her. He likes sleeping at 221b and knowing that John will protect him if need be. He _likes_ that he can completely trust John Watson.  
  
And while he likes it, he knows it's something he can't truly share with the Woman. Part of her appeal is that there is so much about her he can't read, while John is an open book. He must be comfortable with the middle ground.  
  
"If you decided not to take up Jim's web," Sherlock finds himself saying. "You'd make a marvelous consulting detective."

 

That makes her laugh, the sound deeply amused and without a shred of callous cruelty. It's odd, how they shift so quickly, from desire that all but burns with its intensity, to anger to avoidance to cautious casual intimacy all within a matter of hours. As if they both recognize that this holiday, this fragile bubble in which they were both themselves and not themselves, would not last and all the emotion that made them so painfully ordinary in their conflict and desire would have to be purged before it ended.

 

"I'm flattered," she answers, reaching for the map tucked under his arm. Her eyes all but sparkle as she continues, "But I doubt you'd take well to the competition."

 

"You're far more interesting on the opposing side," he agrees, his lip twitching upwards. She takes the map, and he releases it easily. Not that he'll admit she'd become competition, but what else would she be? She's far too intelligent and self-sufficient to become a simple companion like John (not that John wasn't intelligent, he was just ordinary...hardly his fault.)

 

"Precisely why I don't need saving to have my old life back," she answers. It's matter of fact, even amused. With map and coffee in hand, and painkillers beginning to work their way through her system, Irene moves to the hood of the car, unfolding the map and spreading it across the hood.  
  
The radiant heat from the engine is warm against her legs, bare beneath the dress, and she flips the map to a detail of the area around Niagara Falls.  
  
"He expects me here," she informs him, pointing to an area labeled _Journey Behind The Falls_. "The observation platform and tunnels near the bottom of the falls. Public, well-frequented. Visibility may be a bit poor then, if tomorrow's weather report is to be believed."

 

"Calculating where he shot me in London," Sherlock says, looking over her shoulder at the map. "He was aiming for my head. We won't be able to acquire you protective clothing in that case. _But_ , we could acquire you a stand-in. Someone for him to aim a rifle at while you're talking to him."  
  
It would be morally wrong, he thinks. But John Watson isn't there to tell him otherwise.

 

She turns her head just enough to let him see the deeply unimpressed expression she wore. Still, she cannot help but acknowledge that there was in itself a tiny amount of trust here. In taking the map, in showing him a plan that hours ago she had expected he would foil if he could. A small amount of trust, and also the simple, undeniable fact that they worked far better together.  
  
"Why do you think I insisted on a face-to-face meeting somewhere with poor lines of sight? I'm not acquiring a _stand-in_."

 

"The man is clearly a professional assassin, Woman, I don't think he needs a clear line in order to kill you," Sherlock replies.  
  
He takes a final drag of his cigarette and tosses it aside before looking back at her plan. She's picked an excellent place, he thinks. One just outside of all clear rooftops and higher windows.

 

"He's a sniper. Direct line of sight helps."  
  
She sets the coffee cup on the map to weigh it down before taking a step back, as if the distance will help her order her thoughts. The motion also brings her closer to him, but that is, for the moment, utterly inconsequential.  
  
"And he's had his chance best chance to kill me. He didn't take it."

 

"That time," he says. "You were intriguing, then. If your offer isn't up to his standards, he will kill you this time."  
  
She moves closer to him, and he is easily reminded that he does not want her to die. He'd quickly and easily put someone else in her place, if he needed to. But she can't die.

 

"Killing me then threatened his cash flow, and he's gotten used to the lifestyle Moriarty's funds afforded him. Killing me tomorrow would still threaten that." A sidelong glance and the barest tug of a smile at her lips. "And his continued existence."  
  
She gestures towards the map, towards the row of hotels lining the road and affording a view of the Falls. "He's staying on this side of the border. Wouldn't risk the border patrol delaying him for firearms tomorrow. One of the two casinos, I expect."

 

He gestures to the map, fingers brushing hers. "This one has ties to Jim," he says. "The question is, is he likely to stay somewhere he knows but could be traced, or avoid all possibility of detection by going to the other."  
  
This is a question the Woman could answer far better than Sherlock. He can _assume_ , but she can read desires.

 

The brush of his fingers against hers should not make her want to linger, should not _mean_ quite as much as it does. She steps back again, almost leaning into him, and considers the two casinos, considers the man in question. Her knowledge of Moran is not quite as thorough as she'd like, pieced together from a patchwork of interactions before Moriarty's death and the glimpses she has had of his actions since.  
  
But Moriarty's death _had_ changed things, had made his second in command's actions more erratic, less predictable. Still, his creature comforts, his attempts to play the game, his continual harassment, as if testing the boundaries, the lengths to which they can be pushed.  
  
"He'll expect betrayal," she says, finally, and tapped the first casino he mentioned on the map. "Expecting you as the avenging angel, no doubt. And he's a creature of habits, of comfort. Any casino with ties to Jim would be safer in his mind. Not very imaginative, just desperate."

 

Sherlock nods, tapping on said casino with a forefinger. They know Moran's base of operations, at least. One step closer.  
  
"If he runs, that's where he'll run to," Sherlock says. More importantly, if he hurts the Woman, that's where Sherlock will be waiting for him.

 

"Are you expecting him to run?" she asks, her voice carefully bland, her face carefully expressionless, turned pointedly to the map.  
  
But she doesn't bother to hide the tilt of her head, the almost unnoticeable tension in the set of her shoulders and curve of her neck that betray that she is, in fact, curious about his answer.

 

"Run, no," Sherlock replies. "But one false move, I don't think he'll hesitate to kill you."  
  
And, despite earlier anger at her, he does not want that. He moves his hand to gently brush hers. The touch will be noticed by the Woman, of course, but it is also noticed by the man watching them through the sniper scope on the opposing building.

 

His hand brushes hers, and she moves to tangle his fingers with her own. She glances across the map again, and picks one of the other hotels at seeming random. It isn't either casino, nor does the road to it lead past the casino Moran's no doubt chosen. But it is one of the more expensive choices along the waterfront.  
  
"Then it's a good thing you'll be there to make certain he doesn't get too creative, isn't it?" she asks. "Unless you can't put together a disguise to fool Moran on such short notice."

 

"Don't be ridiculous," he says. "I may even go so far as to wear heels."  
  
A beat. His eyebrows knit together. "Probably not. They're really very impractical."

 

She laughs, leaning back against him as she does, her body language far more relaxed and at ease since their impromptu stop on the side of the road.  
  
"That depends on your definition of practical," she corrects, the fingers of her free hand tugging lightly at his belt loops. "I find them extraordinarily useful."

 

From fornicating to fighting to flirting. They're quite the pair, he thinks. And oddly enough, he wouldn't have her any other way. Even though he can't trust her. He isn't certain he'd want to.  
  
"Distraction?" he asks, raising an eyebrow. "Or simply clearing the height differential?"

 

She meets his raised eyebrow with a smirk.  
  
"Were you distracted by my heels when we first met?" she counters, light fingers unhooking from his belt loops to dip into his pocket. She rises on her toes briefly, to leave the ghost of a kiss against his jaw.

 

He feels her hand release from his belt loop, just as he feels her mouth warm against his jaw. It takes a grand total of 2.31 seconds to work out that her hand is in his pocket, and he steals his hand down, gripping around her wrist tightly. With all the seriousness that he immediately realizes she doesn't intend.  
  
She's stealing the keys to the car. Playfully, probably. Ready to get back to their plans, to focus on their work. And there's him, his hand around her wrist in a deadlock. Still not ready to trust.  
  
He releases her and takes a purposeful step back, allowing her to pull the keys.

 

His grip is like an iron shackle against her wrist, and even though moments later he releases her hand, by the time he does, all the warm, flirtatious humour has leeched out of her expression, and she steps back with the keys to the Corvette between her fingers.  
  
"I'll drive to the hotel," is all she says, stepping around him and pulling the map off the car's hood. The half-empty cup of coffee she'd used to weigh down the corner topples, splashing black coffee with a touch of sugar across the cherry red hood.  
  
She ignores it, and tosses the map into the backseat.

 

He could argue the point. He could, but he feels something like guilt in his stomach. No, not something like it, he feels genuine guilt. They were mending, they were repairing. He ruined it.  
  
"I'll walk," he says. "You're choosing the one half a block from the casino, I assume?"

 

Her eyes narrow fractionally as she drops into the front seat, starting the car so that the electronics can pull the seat up for her to reach the pedals.  
  
She doesn't answer immediately, tempted to choose a different hotel for absolutely no reason but to prove him wrong. "Suit yourself," she answers tartly. "If you're so certain you've picked the correct one."

 

"I am," he replies. He isn't. Luckily, the car is obnoxious enough that he should be able to spot what hotel she's parked in front of. Unless she purposefully parks it elsewhere, which would be very like her.  
  
He should get into the car with her. He should accept it, let her take control. But then again, he wants to walk. Wants to remind himself of things that are important, out here.  
  
"Shouldn't be more than fifteen minutes."

 

She slams the driver's side door shut, a touch too loud, perhaps, but it makes her feel better. She gestures ahead, and answers him through the open window. "I'll give you a head start then."

 

He purses his lips and turns, walking swiftly away from her and the car.  
  
The sniper scope follows the car for a moment, and then focuses entirely on Sherlock.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To all of our darling readers, thank you for your patience in getting this installment out! It took a little longer than expected to edit, but we should be back to our normal publishing schedule of a chapter a week. We hope you are still enjoying this little adventure we've taken Sherlock and Irene on. We know we still enjoy running them through all manner of trouble.


	2. Sentiment in a Bottle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Their trust in each other tested, Sherlock Holmes and Irene Adler must decide just how temporary the partnership that had begun in Montenegro will be. Or will they instead retreat to something less damning than their own growing sentiment?

Unaware of the man behind sniper scope, Irene instead revs the car's engine and peels off sharply, heading in the exact opposite direction Sherlock has chosen.  
  
She disappears into traffic, but keeps an eye on the road, makes a turn as soon as she is able, to a street parallel to the one she is on, to double back around to the hotel in question, half a block away from Jim Moriarty's casino.  
  
It takes no time at all for Irene to procure a room on one of the top floors of the hotel, the windows offering a breathtaking view of the Falls and the refracted, fading sunlight that gleams over the water. There are two, pristinely made beds in the room, and a bag is tossed onto the one closest the door. The room itself is empty of people, though the sound of the running shower gives a clue as to where the occupant likely was.

 

At first, he is genuinely concerned that she's going to go to a different hotel. Still his instincts with her are (for the most part) correct. He stays on the path he chose originally.  
  
He walks to the hotel. He is reminded of walking back to Baker Street after discovering she was alive. It seems like so very long ago, but it was only a year prior. All of those _emotions_ running through him. Anger, fear, rejection, and ultimately pleasure at the knowledge that she was still in the world. Those emotions aren't going through him now. He feels rejection, anger, frustration, and ultimately _guilt_ for doubting her. But how could he not doubt her? They are, at this point, working together but also separately. She wants to own Jim's organization. He wants to destroy it. There must be some sort of a middle ground.  
  
The top floor hotel is comfortable, he decides. The two beds sit tidily in the room, and he can hear the shower running. She's probably still furious at him. That's fine. He's used to going days without John Watson talking to him. He toes off his shoes and turns on the television.

 

She spends an inordinate amount of time in the shower, partly to indulge herself in the simple solitary pleasure, partly to rinse away every trace of the day from her body. Shampoo and conditioner remove the telltale signs of windblown hair, soap and water sluicing away sweat and dirt and bodily fluids. The running water masks the sound of his entrance, but when she steps out of the steam, she can hear the television through the door.  
  
She says nothing, instead taking more time to change the dressing on her leg. A minimal amount of blood, no doubt from the stress of their liaison in the car, but the new bandage is pristine. The feel of her hair loose and wet against her skin irritates her, but neither does she enjoy the thought of drying it and returning it to its usual coiffure. It would be far too much effort, no doubt he'd interpret it as care she took for his presence. Instead she braids it loosely, and pulls on only a men's button down shirt, taken from the hotel's laundry service and pointedly not his.  
  
Exiting the bathroom, she barely gives him a glance as she heads straight for the duffel on the bed, unzipping and rifling through the contents without a word. A rumpled change of clothes is tossed aside as she unearths a small brown envelope, its size and thickness hinting at papers, travel documents within, perhaps.

 

He keeps his eyes on the television. Crap television, particularly for this part of the world. _Dancing With The Stars_. He wonders if the judges are aware of the pin in the girl's foot and why she's dancing so awkwardly. He changes the channel. Maury.  
  
He glances, only briefly, at the Woman's actions. The brown envelope, the shirt taken from the laundry. He can't read what her hair means, but he feels like there's something he missed.  
  
"A lie detector test can't prove parentage," he snaps at the television. "This is idiotic."

 

The talk show host is blathering on about paternity and the audience catcalls the three potential fathers as they are introduced. Irene ignores it and crosses the room again to the wide expansive windows, the envelop still in her hand.  
  
"So is talking at the television," she snipes, her back to him. She stares out across the view, not sorting through the papers yet, her silhouette outlined by the setting sun. When the sun set, no doubt fog would roll in, but for the moment the froth and churn of the water spilling down the falls is clearly visible. It is beautiful, she thinks, but she is in no mood to enjoy it.  
  
"And trash talk shows."

 

He ignores her sniping and continues to watch the show, relaxing back against the bed. She relaxes in her way, he relaxes in his.  
  
"Oh, don't be ridiculous. None of them have a cleft in the chin and the boy does," he snaps. "None of them. Honestly, basic genetics!"  
  
He looks back at the Woman again, silhouetted against the window. The term coming to mind for the way she looks is _sexy_ , in the shirt that isn't hers, with her wet hair in a braid. Sexy, primarily for the fact that he immediately begins to think of fairly inappropriate things as he looks at her, then back to the television.  
  
"We're not going to have a similar problem, are we?" he asks.

 

His attention is momentarily taken up by shouting at the television, and she sets the envelope down on the table. She still doesn't open it, still considering the landscape outside, ordering her thoughts. Moscow is on her mind again, a reopened possibility.  
  
"Make your own deduction, Mr. Holmes. Any answer I gave you would be suspect."  
  
She opens up the envelope then, dumping out two pairs of passports.

 

"The last time I discussed charting your menstruation cycles, you appeared offended," he says, turning to look back at the television. The two sets of passports could either be a very good or a very bad sign. Good if one of them features a person that looks like him. Bad if it features someone who looks like Moran.  
  
Her emptying it out is meant to alleviate his worries, he thinks. It probably looks like him.

 

She could, at the moment, care less about his worries. Her attention is more focused on the the papers. She doesn't have to open them to know what is in each. Both pairs have their photos in them, one pair for a Mr. and Mrs. Johansson from the Netherlands. The other for one Ms. Alissa Carrington of New Jersey, former opera singer, and one Mr. John Stingenson, French journalist.  
  
"I wasn't aware my _offense_ was part of your calculations," she answers, turning her attention away from the view outside to the passports on the desk. She should make a choice and be done with it.

 

"It isn't, really," he replies, bluntly. "So I've kept account anyway. Trauma's noted as a potential issue, and there have been weeks we've been apart, so there's the potential I've missed the monthly calculations."  
  
At the same time, he's also noticed that she hasn't menstruated since they've been together. With the sheer amount of sexual activity without known contraception...it concerns him. He watches the squabbling people on the television, cheering and shouting.  
  
"I'm passable as a friend, dramatically inexperienced as a lover," he says. "I imagine becoming a father would be a fair challenge I wouldn't be able to meet."

 

She remains facing away from him, but she realizes the wide windows may throw a reflection of her expression back to him. It doesn't stop her from pressing her lips together, doesn't stop her eyes from narrowing. Her attention is torn from the passports on the table to the man behind her, his attention pointedly, ostensibly on the television but its obviousness is enough to tell her it isn't actually there.  
  
"You're being presumptuous, Mr. Holmes," she says, her voice carefully cold. She's realized for a while now that her cycle has been erratic, but between the unpredictability of their trek and the weight loss that she still has not regained, that in and of itself was not a surprise. "I have no intention of being _burdened_ , as you put it. This holiday will end and you'll return to Baker Street to irritate John Watson and his fiancee, and I will make my way in the world."

 

"No, no, _no!_ " he snaps, loudly.  
  
The television hums next to him, and he keeps his eyes away from the Woman for a moment before he clarifies, calmly: "The lie detector is not set up correctly."

 

She is momentarily surprised by his vehemence, and when he clarifies, she laughs, soundlessly mocking, at her own reaction. Sentiment.  
  
She leaves the passports on the desk, walking away from them to lean against the window, still not turning to face him. "Why does it matter? The lie detector's far too fallible. And the father's going to be the neighbor's son, not one of those three idiots."

 

"We'd need to get a look at his chin," he says. "Cleft, or no cleft. I'm honestly revolted that they haven't worked it out."  
  
If the Woman were to become pregnant, Sherlock would have no say as to her decisions regarding it, nor would he want to. His only input would be to inform her that he is, in no way, the sort of man she'd want to raise a child. Of course, he doubts very much that she would allow herself to be slowed down by a crying, smelly creature, even if it would have her brilliance and his intellect.  
  
He wants to talk to her. To inform her that he wants to trust her, but he can't. He's even vaguely aware of what he'd say. Something along the lines of, _We've both become too trusting, too complacent._ He knows this, but he can't make himself say it. He can't admit the weakness she makes him feel.  
  
"You're certain you won't take a stand-in?" he asks. "In case he decides to shoot at or capture you?"

 

A scoff, at his answer about the melodrama taking place on the television. As if to say that _he_ might need to see the neighbor's son's chin, but _she'd_ worked it out without needing such proof, thank you very much.  
  
A twitch in her leg reminds her that she is still less than fully healed, and Irene steps away from the window to drop into an armchair, her bare legs flung over one arm. She leans back against the other arm, the very picture of careless, feminine indolence, and looks up, watching the play of shadow against the textured ceiling. "He'll expect a trick of that sort," she answers idly, all confidence she only half feels. "He won't expect I will meet him, seemingly alone. That'll keep him unbalanced. Easy to play."

 

"Meanwhile, I'll have the gun in case things go badly," he agrees. "I simply think we're overestimating his abilities."  
  
Then again, he'd managed to find them in San Salvador. Jim wouldn't keep an idiot as his right-hand man and Sherlock knows it. He also doesn't know what Moran _wants_ , doesn't know what to expect from him. He can only trust that the Woman knows what he likes. To be controlled.

 

"Be careful, Mr. Holmes," she says wryly, tilting her head to give him the briefest of sidelong looks. "You're almost starting to sound concerned."

 

He keeps his eyes on the television.  
  
"You already know that I am," he says, tersely.

 

A shrug, and she turns back to the window. "I also know you'd rather not be. No place to start like the present, wouldn't you say?"

 

"I'd rather have no emotion towards you whatsoever," Sherlock says, simply. "As it is, that appears to not be possible."  
  
And, although he'd never admit it, he often finds himself _liking_ the way they feel towards each other. She makes him feel things, things that are uncomfortable or pleasant, and he finds it feels _good_. At times. This, mind, is not one of those times.  
  
"Would you rather continue with this on your own?" he asks, affecting as neutral a voice as he can.

 

She doesn't answer the question. The answer is, in her mind, far too obvious to need an answer. She _likes_ them as they are now. Likes the companionship that is far more energizing, far more interesting than Kate had ever been. She likes the opportunity, the ability to confound him and to wring from him the things that are human rather than god-like, as he would rather be.  
  
She dislikes the fact that he can do the same to her, that he can undo her so easily, but there is a part of her that likes that too, the part of her that knows that a game she can always win is dull, the part of her that knows that the only person with whom she can never be certain she'll come out on top against is him.  
  
"Moran's no doubt already explored the observation deck and the tunnels around it," she says instead. "Figured out the best places to wait unseen. Which means the trick will be to be unnoticed. At least for you."

 

"Meanwhile, you will be acting as both reel and bait," he replies. He doesn't like it. Not because he thinks the Woman incapable, no. He simply thinks that the man she is attempting to lure might be far more of an idiot than either of them are prepared for.  
  
And a world without the Woman is not one that Sherlock desires to be part of.  
  
"I'll find a disguise. I do know how to blend."

 

The sun is setting, the shadows growing across the ceiling. Irene rises again, ignoring the twinge beneath the dressing as she swings her legs off the armchair. The motion causes the men's shirt she wears to ride high on her hip, but she doesn't bother to pull it down as she crosses over to the mini bar and pulls out two small bottles of liquor.  
  
She sweeps up two of the passports, the ones for Alissa Carrington and John Stingenson, and tosses them into the bin, and on top of them the contents of the tiny liquor bottles.  
  
"Don't blend too well," she says, opening the desk drawer looking for matches. "I'd prefer my attention wasn't split between dealing with Moran and trying to figure out if the 80 year old geriatric watching is you."

 

"I don't have the right makeup for a geriatric," he admits. "That requires a lot more preparation. Oh, _honestly_! Look at the twist in his belt! There's no way!"  
  
He gestures at the television frantically and lets out an annoyed sigh. The minibar may be the next step to making this crap telly more watchable.

 

"The sentiment remains," she remarks, expecting the words to be drowned out by his talking back to the television.  
  
She straightens, irritated, upon not finding anything in the drawers. She half turns to Sherlock, and extends a hand. "Lighter?"

 

He idly pulls one out of his pocket, holding it out for her. One of the men on the screen is commenting that he couldn't be the father, he was blackout drunk during their entire encounter.  
  
"How much alcohol do you believe it would take to become 'blackout drunk'?" He asks.

 

She takes the lighter, careful not to brush her fingers against his as she does, and pauses at the question, giving the television a cursory glance. "For him, I expect it would take quite a few, even rapidly consumed. His tolerance is high, despite the claim that he's only a social drinker most of the time."  
  
She walks away and reaches for one of the passports in the bin, its pages damp with alcohol. It takes two tries of the lighter for the paper to catch, but when it does she tosses it back into the bin, to catch the other.  
  
Decision made then.  
  
Though perhaps the decision had been made hours ago and she was merely kidding herself.  
  
"You, far less."

 

"I'll have to experiment at some point," he says. "Alcohol dulls the senses. Never my drug of choice."  
  
All the same, he does drag himself from the bed over to the bar, where he picks up one of the other tiny bottles, examining its label before dropping back onto the bed. Part of him would rather like to be a bit numb right now. Numb to the argument, to the way she makes him feel, seemingly without trying.  
  
He doesn't ask what passports she's burned. He can only assume she's decided something. He can only _hope_ (and what an idiotic thing hope is) that he's part of the equation.

 

"Dulls the senses, lowers inhibitions. Blacking out implies loss of control, loss of memory," she says, shoving the flaming mess in the bin into the bathroom and closing the door, letting the ventilation take care of it.  
  
That done, she crosses the room again, picks up three of the bottles without a second glance, and drops onto the other bed. The motion spills a few other things out of the duffel bag she'd brought up, but she ignores it for the moment.  
  
"I can see why it wouldn't be your drug of choice."

 

No, Sherlock had always preferred things that helped bring the world into focus while still numbing the incredible boredom that would destroy his mind. Speedball was his preference, a mixture of cocaine and morphine that both brought things to his mind more sharply, while speeding up the dull world. It had been a long time since he'd used excessively, a lifestyle Mycroft referred to as "bordering on an addict", but he occasionally indulged. Las Vegas still rings in his mind. He wonders if the Woman thinks about that, if she _judges_ his actions.

"I take it you speak from some experience?" he asks.

 

She spins one of the small bottles between her fingers, and some of the minute strains on her body leeches out of the set of her shoulders, out of the muscles in her legs. Still, other tensions remain, the way she steadfastly remains looking away from him, the way she only allows a precise amount of amusement to lighten her tone, a precise curve of the lip to hint at a smile.  
  
"I told you in Las Vegas, I experimented in university."

 

"You did," he recalls. "Somewhat."  
  
He pauses, considering the liquor bottle in his hand, then considering the crap television show. He eventually lets out a long sigh.  
  
"Normally deduction isn't difficult, but when you take into account things that happened ten years prior..."

 

She laughs and twists open the bottle of amber liquid she'd picked up from the minibar. The smell is sharp, full of the raw bite of cheap liquor. Tequila. She doesn't drink it, not yet, and simply stares at the label.  
  
"Alcohol, narcotics, barbiturates. Some other things you might not have even dreamed of cooking up in your chemistry lab," she answers, still not glancing over at him. There is a laugh in her voice, a hint of amusement that is completely out of place with the topic at hand, or that it would be if it were anyone else. "Name your drug of choice, Mr. Holmes. Chances are I've experimented with it. Either personally or on someone else."

 

He opens his own liquor. A VS brandy. Hardly the sort of thing he'd drink back in London, if he drank at all. He tastes it, sharp and bitter.  
  
"You must have been well-liked in university," he says. "Knowing what people like, able to manipulate them. Mycroft was the same."

 

_That_ makes her turn her head, makes her give him a look of absolute disgust, the open bottle still in her hand.  
  
"I hope that wasn't supposed to be a compliment."

 

"An observation," he says, turning away from the television to look her way. "He had the insight with people to learn how to fit in. I imagine you had the same."  
  
Despite Sherlock's incredible disgust for his brother, he could at least admit that he is very, _very_ intelligent, even surpassing Sherlock himself.

 

Another laugh, and she settles back again, staring up at the ceiling, before tipping half the contents of the bottle of tequila down her throat. She winces at the burn, at the sickly sweet aftertaste. To be expected, really.  
  
"Most men don't like dominant women, Mr. Holmes. Even more so in university, when they feel they have to compete with their fellows. I excelled at what I did. Doesn't mean I was liked for it."

 

"Mmm," he says, in response. He had been detested at university. Everyone thought him strange and rude (not terribly unlike his current life, that is), and he didn't have friends. It was a point to mention to Sebastian that John Watson was his friend, proof that he could at least _make one_. He wonders if Sebastian's eyes would bulge further if he knew that Sherlock had, for all intents and purposes, the equivalent of a _girlfriend_ in the Woman.  
  
He cringes at the thought of her as a girlfriend. The very idea is ridiculous. He takes half the bottle as well. It's warm and sharp, and it doesn't soothe his mind at all.  
  
"It's better," he says. "Traveling with you."

 

In hindsight, perhaps it was her experiences at university that led her to rejecting law for her chosen profession. The embrace of being the woman whispered about as well as feared rather than feared and openly despised in their jealousy. The fact that it gave her what she wanted so much more efficiently was a bonus.  
  
She caps the half-empty bottle of tequila, dropping it to let it join its brethren beside her on the bed. The liquor burns, and she expects it will dull the aches and tension coiled tight within her, but she recognizes too that it would make control slip, lower inhibitions. She was far too much herself to enjoy _that_.  
  
Still, something warm settles in her stomach at his answer, something that she is certain isn't the tequila but will call it such anyway.  
  
"I could say the same." It was easier to admit now that he has. "But this can't last forever. We'd run out of places to visit."

 

"I think we'd run out of our stores of trust in each other first," Sherlock says.  
  
He finishes the small bottle, feeling nothing but a warm and burning sensation in his stomach.  
  
"I can usually imagine people in all different scenarios," he admits. "I can't imagine you in university.

 

There is something to that. That maybe they would run out of trust, run out of second chances and excuses to stay. But logically they should have already. They should have run out when he'd disappeared in Las Vegas, when she'd left him in the hospitals in Las Vegas and Nassau. They should have and yet they are still _here_ , and there is something to that. Something that Irene does not bother thinking about, because it implies far too many things.  
  
Instead she picks up another of the bottles, this time a bottle of vodka. Slightly better than tequila.  
  
"No doubt because I hid my whips and boots in university. You've never seen me without them." She holds the unopened bottle between two fingers, contemplating it. Indecisive. "I imagine you weren't much different then than you are now."

 

"I believe I have significantly better social skills than I did in university," he says. "I have friends, now." A pause. "Had."  
  
They all believed him dead. Everyone in his former life, apart from Molly and Mycroft. It is sort of astounding, whenever he allows himself the scope of that. the only people who truly loved him. He gets to his feet and acquires another bottle of brandy. This one is a VSOP, and promises a number of years aging.  
  
"I've also learned not to inform everyone at breakfast who everyone else is sleeping with," he adds.

 

No, she supposes they aren't friends. She supposes she wouldn't even consider them lovers, not really. Temporary partners, perhaps. She opens the bottle of vodka instead, and drains it in one gulp. It burns a path down her throat, disappears into her stomach, no doubt to soon resurface as heat under her skin.  
  
She laughs though, at the thought of him announcing (no doubt loudly) to the gathered breakfasting crowd just who had been sleeping with whom. "Oh? But that was always the best part of breakfast. And faculty luncheons."

 

"Things seemed particularly obvious for me, it took time to realize others didn't realize they were as well. They thought they were tricks. Playing with them. Took years for someone to take my deductions seriously."  
  
He drinks this brandy more slowly. It's smoother, with less of an acidic bite. He prefers it.  
  
"Faculty luncheons?" he asks, dropping back onto the bed. "Explain."

 

She pulls herself up just long enough to set the half-empty bottle of tequila and the third bottle, still full, on the bedside table, out of immediate reach. Too much, too soon, and she _will_ be out of control. He unravels her control enough as it is, she doesn't need to add to it.  
  
Though the accumulated aches have ebbed because of it. She settles back on the bed, flopping down onto the pile of pillows.  
  
"Fascinating things. Time for the students to meet the faculty, the alumni. Networking for the prospective law students and rising stars and all that. You could always see which professors were most likely to sleep with the first years. Which of the alumni got to where they were in the same way. Which students would try it."  
  
A low, warm laugh as the memory bubbles up, as the alcohol begins working its way under her skin. "And how easy it was to make sure the right jealous professor caught the right student with his colleague and watch a career go down in flames."

 

"For fun, or position?" Sherlock asks. "Were you just playing the game?"  
  
It isn't difficult to imagine the Woman playing for the sake of playing. Honing her skills, practicing her art of manipulation the way he practiced his science of deduction. He imagines the friends she had both feared and appreciated her. It's an undeniably attractive thing to realize. The Woman in power. It's where she belongs. He knows this, even as he wants to keep her from Jim's web.  
  
"I imagine we'd have hated each other at university," he says, drinking more of the brandy.

 

"All three," she answers. Lying on the still-wet braid is uncomfortable, and Irene pulls herself to a seated position long enough to begin unraveling it, to let it loose to dry.  
  
She doesn't tell him that the first time she'd ruined a professor's career had been for a woman, for a classmate she'd considered a friend, perhaps even a lover of sorts. It hadn't ended well, and she'd taken to playing the game for amusement instead, watching barristers and solicitors fall from grace.  
  
She gives him a sidelong look. "Extrapolating from current experience, are we?"

 

"Knowledge of myself," he says. "Deduction from your personality. I'd have also tried to expose your game, of course."  
  
There's no embarrassment or remorse about it. He'd have been bored, he'd have been looking for some way to channel his deductive energy. He'd have focused on her, perhaps even obsessed. It is, in his opinion, for the best that they only met recently.  
  
He does not consider his mental preoccupation with her to be obsession.

 

She laughs again, and the warmth under her skin is pleasant, the buzz of the alcohol indeed lowering her inhibitions. Just enough. Too much, perhaps, in the light of day. But for the moment it feels just enough.  
  
"You'd have tried," she agrees. "But you'd never have managed it."  
  
She had, after all, been far more discreet in university.

 

He, too, lets out a laugh. This one is brief, but a lot more relaxed than his average emotional response.  
  
"No, I imagine it would have done little to ruin you, and might even have made things easier," he says. "I wasn't listened to at all back then. People may have sought you out simply because you were brought up as someone who detested me."  
  
He often finds himself wondering what it would have been like, had John and he been the same year in university. To have a friend, that would have been wonderful. Of course, idle thoughts like that are idiotic, such things can never be, and he usually banishes them without more consideration. The alcohol swirling in his stomach is keeping that banishment away.

 

For the first time, Irene wonders how things would have fallen out if they had met in university, if their game had not been motivated by her having engaged Jim Moriarty to blackmail the British government. If it had been simply _the game_ and motivated by little more than mutual boredom.

It's an odd thought. Pointless.

"Or it would have been better for you," she points out. "I wouldn't have dismissed your deductions as magic tricks."

 

"That would've been nice," he says. "And I would have had someone with an intellect to rival mine. Might've made things more interesting."  
  
No, no, it certainly would have. He turns his head to look at her. She must be only a few years younger than he, and she's aged well. So young, beautiful, and influential, but with the understanding that his deductions were _real_ , rather than tricks. Yes, she would have been fascinating to know when they were that age. It will never happen, of course, but the point still stands.  
  
He doesn't love her, but she has become so much part of him that he would want to have her life twisted with his, back through his younger years.

 

"It makes things more interesting now."

He's watching her; she notices the movement of his head out of the corner of her eye. She doesn't turn to meet his gaze. They are being painfully, pointlessly sentimental. A little part of her recognizes it. But the greater part of her is too tired and too soothed by the alcohol to care.

"I'll miss this."

 

"Having someone to be an intellectual equal, or consistent arguing to which you win only half the time?" he asks, a small but cheeky smirk appearing on his face. Their pointless sentiment isn't going to make anything easier, and mentioning that he will wish for her presence after she's left will not eliminate the fact.  
  
"If you were to stay in London, it would no doubt make us both bored of each other," he says, though there's no genuine emotion in that sentiment. He doubts he'll ever bore of her. It's what makes her different.  
  
"We could---have holidays."


	3. Experimental Variability (Explicit)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The possibility of an endless string of holidays, combined with their current experiments in sentimentality and alcohol, lead Irene Adler and Sherlock Holmes down a singular path. But is it a path they will regret embarking on, when the haze burns away in the morning?

As they are now, she doubts London would survive them. They've barely managed to stay in one place for more than a handful of days when they were both able-bodied, after all.  
  
But his suggestion is unexpected, and the simplicity of it makes her turn to look at him, surprise written clear on her face, no doubt due to the alcohol. She isn't certain what she is looking for, but a small smile tugs at her mouth, something small and very real.   
  
"I hope you don't mean Christmas dinners, Mr. Holmes. Your brother may not survive."

 

"As amusing as that might be, I've successfully avoided them for years," he says. "I'd rather not start now."  
  
Apart from Mycroft's insistence on being part of Sherlock's life, he finds he has no real reason to contact his family at all now, considering the last time Mycroft had infuriated their mother. Though it might be incredibly amusing to see Mycroft's reaction to the Woman's presence. And plotting what gifts to give her so Mycroft could be painfully aware of what was occurring between them---as if he weren't already, mind.  
  
"A trip to Norway for the week-end," he says. "Perhaps a case in New York that John has no interest in. I don't imagine there'd be any place for me to consult with the consulting criminal, but it might be interesting."

 

Her smile grows as the idea sinks its teeth into her mind. The idea that there could be other holidays, that they could be _this_ again in a year or three, that this would never really end...  
  
It is tempting beyond belief.  
  
And there would be no question of trust, of betrayal, not if there were understandings in place, rules of engagement. Of course her smile would grow. "That'd be far too easy. If you get to choose the destination, I get to choose a disguise. You'd have to figure it out."

 

He can feel his own heart rate go up as she speaks. The idea of having to pick her out of a crowd of people, of a whole city...it's incredibly stimulating. She knows how to push his buttons, she knows _what he likes_.  
  
"Is it wrong to want someone so recently after you've last had them?" he asks, raising an eyebrow. "You'll have to excuse me, I'm still a bit of a novice on the subject."

 

The smile that has been spreading becomes a laugh, a laugh that while familiar still manages to somehow be softer, be more genuine, more Irene Adler without the dominatrix's armour. It'd never last, but it feels right, for the moment.  
  
She turns on her side to face him fully, propping herself up on one elbow. "A novice? I thought you were a quick study."

 

"Alcohol apparently makes me use words incorrectly. Quick study, but still uncertain about timing on certain subjects."  
  
They can fight, she can get a room with two beds, but they are most certainly caught in each other's orbits. He can't stay away. He imagines one of them would seek out the other eventually. In his most sober moments, he'd probably say he could stay away from her if he wanted to, but that would be a lie.  
  
He finishes the brandy and puts the empty bottle up on the table next to the other.

 

The reverse would be true, of course, if she picked the destination, he'd choose a disguise. The prospect of it is thrilling. And added to it the potential for misbehaviour, for being that close to him and still managing to pull off something under his nose, whether to blackmail a hapless government official or some well-planned larceny...  
  
A shiver of excitement runs up her spine at the idea.  
  
"Then it's a good thing I've never had much use for propriety, Mr. Holmes. Though it may interfere with your," she gestures to the empty bottles of brandy, "experiment."

 

"I believe you're very good at interfering with things I've invested myself in," he says, though there's absolutely no malice to his voice.  
  
He moves to sit up, and the alcohol seems to shift in his body, going right to his head. He feels a little wave of dizziness, but it's not overwhelming, not yet.

 

Even if there had been malice in his voice, nothing in the world would have stopped Irene from taking his sentence as anything but a compliment. Because they both knew very few people in the world could.   
  
"Two drinks and an empty stomach, isn't it?" she asks, still watching him.  
  
There's a reason she remains as still as she does.

 

"I think dinner might be in order," he replies.

 

"Oh?" She gestures towards the hotel room's phone, smirking. "Then perhaps you should call for room service."

 

He moves to get to his feet, and promptly wobbles over to her bed, nearly sitting down on her legs when he drops onto it. He puts a hand to her ankle, then traces it upwards, to her calf.  
  
"I'm not hungry," he says.

 

His hand is surprisingly cool against her bare skin, though perhaps that is because her skin is warmed by the alcohol, and her heartbeat quickens as she watches him. For a moment, Irene is keenly aware of the fact that the _only_ thing she's wearing is the purloined shirt, but that is hardly a concern to be having.  
  
She moves so that she is leaning back on both elbows, watching him with darkening eyes, already shifting into the touch of his hand. "No? Your actions suggest otherwise," she teases.

 

He should eat, he thinks. Not that he'd enjoy being slowed down the following day by digestion, but it might counteract the alcohol. All the same, he likes being able to focus on her, to feel slightly inebriated rather than distrustful.  
  
He leans forward, pressing his mouth to the inside of her calf.  
  
"Do they?"

 

"Rather obviously, I might add."   
  
This is utterly unlike them, utterly unlike their tightly controlled games of dominance, unlike their smoldering teasing banter and their anger and frustration. But then they had been more like this before, once, all weary, desperate connectivity. This is like that, in a way, and like then there is the excuse. Overtaxed then. Inebriated now.  
  
Perhaps they are simply too much themselves to be so purely themselves without the excuse.  
  
But that will come later, with the dawn or with the lifting of the fog. For the moment, she gasps at the touch of his lips to her calf, and her fingers curl against the sheets, resisting the urge to move forward, to pull him to her, because she doesn't trust herself to be quite that precise, because she enjoys watching him, because this is a strange little bubble they've trapped themselves in, of sentiment and an inability to _care_ that they are allowing themselves weakness.  
  
She nods towards the desk overlooking the view of the Falls, slowly fading into twilight. "But then I'm considering having you on that desk."

 

"I'll never beg for mercy," he says, though she has proven him wrong on that more than once. He moves his mouth upwards, pressing it against her knee, tasting her clean skin.  
  
He was often mocked in university for not wanting anyone around him. So many attractive girls, he was told. And boys, if he were into that sort of thing. What was wrong with him? None interested him, none made him _desire_ the physical intimacies his peers seemed obsessed with. Not until the Woman.  
  
The pool of alcohol in his stomach makes him feel warm, buzzy, like a veil sits over him and the Woman, blocking them from the argument from before, from the unrest and emotions that they fought over.

 

She continues watching him as the touch of his mouth against her knee makes her heartbeat race a little faster. Sex and the desires that facilitated it were tools, in her mind, methods of getting what she wanted, and she would occasionally indulge herself with carefully chosen lovers, women who were lovely to look at, to break, who amused her and had something about them that she liked.  
  
But even then, she had always been in control, always been removed and unmoved. Untouchable in many ways.  
  
He is the only one that manages to make her lose that control, to make desire pool in her stomach and her breath hitch with little more than a kiss to the knee.  
  
She pulls herself up to a seated position and threads her fingers into his hair, neither to pull him to her nor to impede his progress. "I'm starting to think you say that to provoke me into proving you wrong."

 

"I think you would enjoy it if I were," he murmurs against her skin.  
  
He has never been one to presume he knows what she likes. All the same, He believes he has some idea, that he's grown to at least know where to touch, how to speak to invoke the right reaction. Right now, that is exactly what he wants to do. Propriety be damned, and anger from before be damned.  
  
"How would you control me if you could, Woman?" he asks, shifting so he can trace up to the inside of her thigh.

 

She makes a little hum of approval as he continues tracing a path with his mouth, shifting to allow him better access between her legs. Her fingers tighten in his hair at the question, that in itself a wordless answer.  
  
"If I could, this wouldn't be near as interesting," she answers. Her voice is not quite breathless yet, but there is an unsteadiness to it, a wavering that indicates that she is trying to remain calm, conversational. "But I've told you before that you look well on your knees."  
  
A gasp as his mouth lingers along a particularly sensitive spot on her inner thigh. "And in handcuffs."

 

"I remember your soft but dangerous ones," he says, smiling against her skin. "Very fitting." Like her, soft with a pleasing exterior, but inside lurk sharp, painful barbs that also bring their own pleasure and leave a mark.  
  
Where she gasps, he traces his tongue along that place inside of her thigh.  
  
"Now, that would hold me, Woman, but how would you _possess_ me."

 

He repeats the motion, and the deliberateness of the touch coaxes another gasp out of her, her head falling back as she arches into him.   
  
"By being unsolvable and intriguing and frustrating and argumentative," she replies with a smirk. All the things that they already did to each other; there was no denying it, not now, that they did possess each other in that way.   
  
She tugged at his hair, not quite desperate enough to bring him to her, but still teasing. "Unless you're asking if I'd handcuff you to the bed and leave after I've made you beg...?"

 

"Ah, so you're already in the works to possess me, I should've known," he says. He traces his mouth up, relishing in the sensation of her body arching, responding, moving.  
  
Her hand is in his hair, tugging, and he thinks that it is a far more fitting place for her to put her hand. Not his heart, his heart is useless. No, she is part of his mind, and always will be. He won't delete her. Couldn't even if he wanted to.

 

"You would have known," she agrees, "If you hadn't been so busy doing the same." Because as much as she refuses to acknowledge it, as much as she tries to ignore and tell herself that this holiday is temporary (though the fact that they had just agreed that it could be extended hurts her own argument), she knows, deep down, that he has her as neatly bound to him as she has him. The fact that she couldn't have walked away in Montenegro simply illustrated how long ago they had been caught in each other's orbits.  
  
Her hips nearly buck into his mouth's ministrations as he continues, but she barely manages to catch herself, to curl the fingers of her hands into his hair and the sheets instead. She had been perfectly serious when she'd said he was a quick study.  
  
And there is no hiding the breathless hitch in her voice. "It seems you have me at a distinct disadvantage at the moment."

 

He moves his mouth up between her thighs, tracing his tongue over her clitoris. Her taste is somewhat muted from the recent shower, but it is still strongly feminine, and distinctly her. His sexual pleasure comes from the power play, from having her at this disadvantage, and watching her writhe in her own pleasure. It's a very powerful thing, and if his brain were working at its top speed, one he might even take a moment to comment on.  
  
As it is, he focuses, letting out a small hum of appreciation that sends vibration along his tongue.

 

His hum is barely audible over the sound of her own heartbeat pounding in her ears, but the feel of his humming approval is unmistakable, skittering across receptive, sensitive nerves and sending sparks of pleasure up her spine.  
  
She arches against his mouth, and the beginning of a low moan of pleasure escapes her before she manages to swallow it back. This time when she tugs at his hair, it _is_ demanding, with every intention of pulling his far-too-skilled mouth away from her traitorous body, so that she can draw the same visceral want from him as he is managing from her.

 

She tugs at his hair, and he _denies_ her, because there is something wonderfully buzzy about intoxication and sexuality. He focuses entirely on her, on the reactions his mouth is producing from her. He's not about to stop that, not about to give up control just yet.

 

She is not used to being denied, not even by him, and certainly not _now_. A growl of frustration begin low in her throat, but as his tongue lingers and his teeth graze lightly against her clitoris, the growl melts into a wanting cry. Not one of need, not yet not now not ever but it is perilously close.  
  
"You're just making things harder for yourself in the long run, I hope you realize," she gasps, her fingers in his hair slipping lower until they are at the back of his neck, allowing her to dig her nails into skin rather than the tangle of his curls.  
  
She tries to still her arching hips even as she speaks. Fails.

 

From a strictly literal standpoint, she is absolutely right. He is intensely erect at the moment, and that wanting feels very good. Almost as good as feeling her hips arch against his mouth and hearing her breath gasping as she speaks. She has driven him mad in the past, this is, really, the kindest way to repay that.  
  
He lifts one hand up, underneath the shirt that isn't hers, to traces his hand along her warm skin. He has the image of her naked body memorized, but there is always something he hasn't learned, some way that her flesh feels beneath his fingers that he learns each time he touches her.

 

It is, perhaps, absolutely fitting that he is driving her mad this way, when sexuality and all the finer points of desire are her purview and her expertise. She, after all, does the same to him intellectually, in what he would ostensibly consider _his_ specialty.   
  
But she is Irene Adler, and poetic and fitting or not, she does not take well to being reduced to gasping and writhing under his touch without every intention of returning the favour. And the distraction of his hand running along her hip, tracing lines of fire against her bare skin, does not detract her from that.  
  
Well, not completely, at least.  
  
She untangles the hand that isn't digging into his skin from the sheets, her fingers wrapping around his wrist as he traces against her skin, and she pulls his hand towards her, willing herself to break the intimate, delicious contact even as she writhes, gasping, beneath him.  
  
She would, after all, rather give as well as she got.

 

He feels her grip around his wrist, and he is reminded of the handcuffs in London, of her controlling him, digging painfully into him. He doesn't fight against her ministrations with his wrist, continuing to focus on how he makes her gasp and writhe. Unfortunately, his inebriation (however minor, he assures himself) means he can't quite balance enough to utilize his other hand in giving her pleasure. Rather, that one has to be used for balance on the bed.  
  
She wants him to move up on the bed, to give her back some control. He moves his mouth from her clitoris, just for a moment, to smirk at her.  
  
"Not good?" he inquires, voice teasing.

 

His pause is just enough for her to gather herself back together, to keep from being utterly undone by him. Still, the pause does not hide the flush of her skin, does not suddenly negate the way her hair is still damp and tousled, or the dark dilation of her eyes as she meets his.  
  
It doesn't keep her voice from being low and throaty and breathless as she answers, though it allows her to smirk back as her grip tightens, both at the back of his neck and on his wrist, to pull him closer, "More curious whether you could keep it up while distracted. Or are you afraid of the answer?"

 

"Explain," he says.  
  
She pulls and he follows, with every intention of returning where he had been the moment she explains. Curiosity, after all, is one of his greatest weaknesses. The need to understand.

 

He follows, much as she'd expected he would, and she crushes her mouth to his for a brief, intense moment, tasting herself on his tongue, reveling in the momentary closeness where there had moments ago been nowhere near enough skin against hers.   
  
And as she does, her grip on the back of his head loosens, her fingers trail along his shoulder, then down his front. Rather than the teasing, frustrating way she normally undresses him, one button at a time, this time she reaches unerringly for his waistband to unzip him, to free his almost painfully obvious erection from its confines.   
  
"I'd prefer to demonstrate," she retorts when she breaks the the kiss, bringing his wrist up to her mouth, and touching the tip of her tongue to his fingertip.

 

He lets out a sharp breath as she undoes his trousers, and her tongue touches his fingertip. Logically, there should be nothing arousing about this action---there are no nerve endings within his fingertip that are even remotely sexual, but his body reacts all the same.  
  
Normally, he thinks he would take the time to continue his actions to her, to focus on _winning_ whatever they have between them, but right now, in this bubble of intoxication and sentiment, he allows her to demonstrate. No, not allows. He never allows the Woman anything. He simply allows himself to relax, to let her control.

 

Her lips curve into a smile against his fingertip at his sharp exhale, and she can feel him relax, see the minute ways his body submits. But she knows him, knows him almost as well as she knows herself, and she knows that it isn't simply a submission of the body but that it is a submission of the mind, that the body is transport, that it merely _follows_.  
  
She moves deliberately, partly from the alcohol, partly because she _wants_ to be deliberate. Her fingers run lightly along the length of his arousal with nowhere near enough friction, but enough to promise, and at the same time she lets go of his wrist, pushing at his shoulder, guiding him on his side and then his back.  
  
"It seems to me, Mr. Holmes, that this has been far too one-sided an exploration," she says, her voice still breathless but trying to remain casually careless. She moves to straddle him, but unlike the multitude of other times she has, this time she deliberately does not face him, instead straddling his chest such that she can lean down and wrap her lips around his erection.  
  
Her breath is warm against him, and she spares him barely a glance over her shoulder before she touches the tip of her tongue to his erection. "I expect to even the odds."

 

"Oh, do you?"  
  
He gasps, not even bothering to hide his pleasure at the change of position and the way she takes control. There is something both excellent and different about this change in sensation, and she is an expert at making her mouth do things that he _likes_. He could easily close his eyes and focus on only that, on the way she's making him feel, but this position, he thinks that's not what she wants.  
  
The way she has positioned herself leaves him with an excellent view of her posterior, and if he moves his head just so, he can lean forward to press his mouth back where it had been before, albeit in an upside-down position.

 

He gasps, and she slowly takes more of him into her mouth, her tongue lingering against sensitive skin and nerves throbbing with the rush of blood southward. She had expected to be able to draw a few more needy noises from him before he realized the potential of their switch in position, but he is, as she had accused him of being earlier, a quick study, and it is practically no time at all before she feels his mouth against her again.  
  
She purrs with approval, the sound rising like a hum from deep within her throat and along her lips and tongue. Her nails dig into his hip, pushing away fabric until she can find skin, as she arches into him, determined to drive him to distraction before he can do the same to her.

 

Her purr against his erection shoots sensation up his spine, and he lets out a moan against her as he traces his tongue across her clitoris. Her nails are sharp against his skin, and her mouth is warm and---and---  
  
It is possible, he thinks, to have too much of a good thing. He knows this, from when he was 19 and overdosed at university. If it were possible to overdose from a lover, he would be experiencing that right now. He has the taste of the Woman, the smell of her sex, the feel of her mouth, and she is even digging into his skin. But still it doesn't feel like he has enough of her. The word _love_ comes to his mind again, but saying he loves the Woman would diminish all of the things she makes him feel. No, no. What they have is far different from that. Far better.  
  
He cries out again, losing his ability to concentrate.

 

She can feel him tense and move beneath her touch, and a thrill of satisfaction snakes up her spine as his tongue traces against her clitoris, and pleasure chases the thrill of satisfaction up her spine, desire once again heated and demanding beneath her skin.  
  
She is intoxicated, not from simply the alcohol (though that helped), but from his ministrations, from the games they played and the knowledge that this was possibly not their last holiday. His cry urges her on, and she swallows back her own to coax another moan out of him, her nails digging again into his skin.   
  
She wants him and everything he does to her as much as she wants to win, at the moment, and it is a desire that she will never admit in the light of day, that she _likes_ it that he draws this out of her, this desire to be shattered to pieces even as she does the same to him.

 

Sexual contact can be intimate, there are certainly levels of trust involved. This, however, this is a whole new level of trust. He is trusting her teeth and her nails, and she is trusting him when she can't even see him. Mutually shared pleasure and---  
  
Her nails dig into his skin as her tongue swirls over a particularly sensitive ridge. His hips buck, which he supposes is rather gauche considering the situation, but impossible to avoid. He focuses on her again, but his mind is reminded that, despite the fact that he had more time on her, she is still winning.

 

His hips buck up and she takes the opportunity to take him deeper into her throat, her tongue lingering along the length of him. Familiar tension is coiling in the pit of her stomach at his attentions, at the feel of his tongue and his deliberate experimentation to find what she likes, and her toes curl in anticipation of orgasm. But she is determined to take him with her, that she will not let him win this way, and she attempts to remain focused even as she twitches and arches against his mouth.  
  
Though she thinks, with whatever little focus she has left, that she may lose this game.  
  
And perhaps it isn't quite the end of the world.

 

He should be polite. He should tell her how close he is to orgasm, in case of any messiness that may occur. But then again, she is moving against his mouth, and he thinks he can hold off, just a little longer, and win this competition between them. This competition against their own pleasure.  
  
Whenever they make love, he often wonders if they are the only two who can share this sort of experience together, if they are the only two who can give and compete at the same time. And then he is reminded that this is what intimacy is like, the knowledge of what these experiences mean without actually talking about it.  
  
He hums against her clitoris again, pitch rising as his body threatens to make him lose.

 

She won't lose to him. She _refuses_ to.  
  
But his tongue delves just _so_ and his hum reverberates along his lips and tongue and against her clitoris, and the combination is more than even her remarkable will can hold back as the tension breaks and her entire body clenches and shudders with the force of her climax.  
  
She has just enough awareness to turn the cry of pleasure into a low, throaty moan against his arousal.

 

He thinks he can hear her cry out, but he's too far gone to notice. He loses his concentration, and a wave of orgasm falls over him. He cries out her name against her, and his hips buck up as he orgasms.  
  
This was, most definitely, an excellent idea on her part. He'll have to remember to tell her that, once his brain returns to his body.

 

He climaxes against her and even as she opens her throat to swallow, his cry against her intensifies her own orgasm and it is all she can do to hold herself together, her fingers no doubt digging furrows into his hips, as the redoubled wave of sensation threatens to leave her utterly without either breath or thought.  
  
Eventually, she manages to disentangle herself, to pull away just enough to rest her head against his thigh. To do anything more than to simply catch her breath seems beyond her capabilities at the moment, at least until the feeling of utter bonelessness fades.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An early chapter this week, as Lyra will be at Emerald City Comicon. Hope you all enjoy it still, early or no. :)


	4. Walls and Ruins

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An experiment in alcohol and sexuality leave Sherlock Holmes and Irene Adler uncharacteristically vulnerable. And there are only two ways they react to vulnerability...

His cry is partially out of pain, of the feeling of her fingernails digging into his flesh. That's very _her_ , though. Very the Woman. She leaves her little marks on him, and he's left with the profound feeling that he'd quite like to have her do that again.  
  
He kisses the inside of her thigh as she rests against him.  
  
"I was concerned we might end up arguing all night," he says.

 

The room has dimmed since she last looked out the windows. Twilight had well and truly fallen since, and she smiles at the kiss against the thin, sensitive skin of her thigh.  
  
"There's still quite a bit of night left, if you're disappointed," she answers. She expects she'll be able to move soon, to pull away and rest against the mattress rather than him, but there is something intimate about where she is now, half sprawled against him, mind and body adrift in a pleasant haze.

 

His mind is still buzzing with alcohol, his body is buzzing with endorphins. Everything smells like her, like her perfume and her sex. She fills a room this way, with her scent and her personality, and he willingly wades through it all. Swims in it, really.  
  
"I don't love you," he says, voice quiet. It has been far too long since he's reminded them both of this.

 

"I haven't forgotten."  
  
 _I don't love you._ _I won't love you._.  
No, they aren't like ordinary people, not even in this. Not in the slightest.  
  
She catches her breath and moves off him just enough to rest her weight against the bed, her hair still trailing against his thigh. The purloined shirt is high above her hips, and the dressing covering the wound from San Salvador is stark against her skin. Irene finds herself unable to really care about either as she props herself up on one elbow to watch him.

 

He leans his head slightly to look at her, leaning against his thigh. Skin flushed from their exertions, wound still healing, her body repairing itself. She is at once injured and completely together. Wild and composed. He often finds he has no real way of reading her, even now.  
  
If he could love someone, he would love her, he thinks.  
  
"I keep waiting to tire of you," he says, walls down and voice honest. "That you'll become ordinary and uninteresting. It hasn't happened. Not even remotely."

 

There is something about his vulnerability in moments like this that is both at once extraordinarily appealing and utterly terrifying, in Irene's mind. The simple fact that she does this to him, and the implication that he can do the same to her, to reduce her to the same vulnerability.  
  
She dislikes it, but at the moment can't find it in herself to turn away from it.  
  
"Neither of us are ordinary," she answers, turning her head just enough to press her lips against his thigh. "We couldn't be if we tried."

 

No, they couldn't be. That was the crux of his time at university. He could not make himself fit in. It wasn't until now, until the Woman, that he found someone who wanted him for this fact.  
  
He reaches his hand down to take hers.

 

He reaches for her hand and she allows it, does not pull away, and in fact twines her fingers with his, the amethyst ring that has become so much a part of her winking in the dim light.  
  
"Disappointed?"

 

"Considering the number of endorphins running through my system, the answer to that is most definitely no," he says, his voice flat but the meaning teasing.  
  
He traces his thumb across hers as she links their fingers. They are linked, like their fingers and her purloined ring. Linked to each other and the _misbehavior_ that has become part of their lives.  
  
As with their conversation about knowing each other in university, it is useless to wonder _what if_ , particularly when it comes to the Woman. But if he had no life to return to in London, would it be worth it to stay with her, to see if they would eventually tire of each other?

 

The feel of his thumb tracing across hers is a familiar sensation now; she suspects she'd recognize it even blindfolded and without the moments of intimacy that usually precedes it. Still, she shifts just enough to watch him, to watch the way his hand moves against hers.   
  
She has to remind herself that this is how they are best, on holiday, temporary. That they would be absolutely rubbish together for any sustained length of time.  
  
"Maybe I should ask when you aren't compromised by endorphins," she teases lightly. She won't, of course. Because these moments of intimacy are the only times when she will allow her walls to come down long enough to even ask the question.  
  
There's a burst of boos from the television, but she doesn't bother turning to look. No doubt some terribly obvious thing has just been revealed to the talk show audience as a shocking revelation.

 

Sherlock could look over at the television, but it isn't important. Crap telly is enjoyable when there's nothing else interesting in the room or nothing he wants to deal with at all. The Woman is here, and her face is full of interesting tells and expressions he'd rather focus on than what's happening elsewhere.  
  
That, and they're probably just revealing what he predicted earlier.  
  
"By that point, you'll either be negotiating with Moran, or he'll be dead," Sherlock says.

 

A flicker of annoyance crosses her face, but it fades too quickly to linger, and her hand remains in his. A small, amused smile plays at the corner of her mouth at his answer. He is nearly as stubborn as she was; it should be no surprise that he would not have changed his mind about that particular detail.  
  
"Or he'd already be wearing my leash," she counters with a wicked gleam in her eyes. "But then you might be compromised by endorphins. Again."

 

Sherlock makes a face.  
  
"He's not going to be there for that, is he? I'm not certain how things work with...leashes."

 

She laughs without malice and begins to rise.  
  
"He's not my type."

 

He reaches for her hand again. The alcohol, or the moment, or _something_ , whatever it is, makes him want to hold onto her.  
  
"Stay," he says, before he can stop himself.

 

She'd suspect it is the aforementioned endorphins. Still, she pauses, and her fingers linger against his. She is almost uncharacteristically vulnerable when she nods towards the restroom and promises, "I'll be back in a moment."

 

He nods.  
  
He shouldn't have asked her to stay. He shouldn't still be here, playing to something that is her whim, her plans. He should be focusing on the web. But he stays, he stays because the opposite is unthinkable right now.  
  
"Yes," he says, nodding. "I'll be here."

 

She doesn't think of leaving, doesn't think of anything beyond this little moment. The rest will come with sunrise, she thinks, but for the moment she lingers in it. She pads on bare feet to the restroom and turns on the faucet, in a moment returning with two glasses of water, one of which she offers him.  
  
"I loathe hangovers."

 

He takes the glass, his eyebrows knitted together.  
  
"Did we drink enough for that?"

 

The bed dips beneath her weight as she sits back next to him, tucking one leg beneath her as she does. The hand not holding the glass rests at her side and she takes a sip before answering.  
  
"I doubt it." Her lips quirked upward. "But then you did exert yourself."

 

He takes a drink from the water.  
  
"I think we shared in that exertion," he agrees.  
  
Moments like before, during the long drive, were moments that made him more frustrated than most things in his life. And now, moments like this, are moments where he feels the most content. She produces the most fascinatingly polarizing emotions within him. And he prefers it this way.  
  
There's another cheer from the show. He reaches for the remote control and flips off the television, no longer needing the diversion.

 

He drinks. She smiles.  
  
Irene tries not to think of how they are now, whether or not these moments could be replicated, whether or not she'd want them to be. To think about it would be to consider how they have changed since a single glance on a Montenegrin road, a single liaison in the Kotor opera house. How they are finding themselves content and comfortable rather than simply moving on, coming together and apart.  
  
To think on it was dangerous, so instead she takes another sip of water, draws her knees up to her chest and rests her chin on them as she watches him turn off the television, the flush fading from his skin, his hair tousled. "There'd have to be a limit," she muses conversationally, returning to a point of conversation that had been laid aside for more interesting exertions, the consideration of holidays beyond this. "A limit to the days you could have to find my disguise."

 

"The holiday could be one week," he says. "The amount of time we have to find each other is one week. Long enough to enjoy each other's company, not long enough that Mycroft or John would notice my absence."  
  
Mycroft may be aware that the Woman is alive, but John and her enemies do not. Yet, though that's about to change. Somewhere in his mind, he's aware that he should tell her that, and soon. But not just yet. It would ruin the planning, ruin the moment.  
  
"If the disguise bores you, we could also make it location. Three clues, one destination."

 

She hums thoughtfully at the suggestion, and takes another drink from her glass, letting the cool water slide down her throat, as if washing away the earlier, pleasant burn of alcohol. "You're assuming you _can_ penetrate my disguise in a week," she teases. "If you aren't careful, I might take that as a challenge."  
  
Still, the idea is extraordinarily tempting.

 

"I imagine I won't need more than an hour," he says. The ego is honest, but he knows the Woman will give him a far better challenge than that. It's what she does. She gives him challenges. She _is_ the challenge.

 

Her eyes narrow, and she sets the half-empty glass down before leaning close.   
  
"Trying to manipulate me into accepting to prove you wrong?" she asks, the words somewhere between a purr and a growl. Still, she kisses him, because while the endorphins and the physical pleasure will fade, the challenge will remain, and be all the more pleasantly tempting for it.

 

His ever-so-witty retort is swallowed by her kiss, and he finds he doesn't miss saying it all that much. He has never had to have the last word with the Woman, and even he isn't entirely certain why. He moves to put his own glass on the side table as she kisses him, but it misses and falls to the carpet. He pays it no mind.  
  
He can taste the liquor, as well as himself, in her kiss. It's interesting, and he's not experienced anything quite like it prior. It's intimate. Surprisingly so.

 

It was possibly for the best that he didn't need to have the last word; she'd never let him have it, after all.  
  
A part of her mind registers the clink of his glass missing the side table, the splash of water, but most of her doesn't care, instead focused on the simple intimacy of the kiss. She can taste herself on his tongue, and him on hers, along with the last of his brandy. It fits for the moment, she thinks, just a moment of intimacy without the driving tension that draws them to each other like magnets. Without the desire to tease and win and the rest.  
  
It won't last, but for a moment she thinks she might want it to.


	5. The Throbbing Light of Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The science of alcohol consumption follows a predictable course, even for someone as extraordinary as Sherlock Holmes. But with morning light comes consequences, and fortunately Irene Adler is more than happy to watch over this particular set of consequences.

At some point in the night, she falls asleep. Irene is not certain when that point was, or how long into the evening it had been, but the fact that she stirs, wakes to the warmth of sunlight slowly crawling across the hotel bed, makes it abundantly clear that she had, in fact, fallen asleep.   
  
In the moments before she blinks awake, she feels the tangle of sheets around her bare legs, and the heavy warmth of a body next to hers, the weight of an arm around her waist. She shifts slowly, slips out from beneath his arm and the sheets with a practiced fluidity, and pads over to the window. Her hair is a tangle, having been tousled and slept on while wet, and she stands at the window untangling it, leaning against the desk and its untouched pair of passports to minimize the ache in her leg.  
  
She wonders briefly if she should wake him. Or if she should just slip away to encounter Moran without him. She already knew the most likely place Moran was staying, and had the number to his mobile. Certainly she could, if she felt so inclined, be done before the man in the bed even stirs awake.

 

It is at the moment that the light nears his face that Sherlock curses the carpet of this hotel room. The carpet that consumed a majority of the water in the glass, ensuring that it was not consumed by Sherlock Holmes. Sherlock Holmes has experienced a number of come-downs in his time, but has never consumed enough alcohol for a hangover.  
  
First time for everything.  
  
It is not as unpleasant as coming down from heroin or cocaine, but his head is _annoyingly_ painful, and his mouth is dry. He snorts and remains in bed, unmoving.  
  
"How many hours until Moran?" he asks aloud, and winces at the sound of his own voice.

 

The sound of his hoarse voice is enough to tell her exactly what afflicts him, and Irene has to smother a laugh in response.   
  
"Four, if you're feeling worrisome. Five, if you aren't," she answers, running a hand through her hair. The worst of the tangles are gone, leaving the mass well enough to be twisted up with the pen sitting next to the telephone. "Should I say good morning?"

 

He lets out a grunt in response. He should get up, get some water and tablets, and take a shower. He will, however, remain where he is in a grumpy, hungover state.  
  
"How's the leg?" he asks in a voice that says he does not really care about how her leg is. This is, of course, not true. He would not inquire if he didn't care. His head, however, makes it impossible to sound like he cares.

 

"Well enough that I'm considering avoiding additional bullet wounds," she answers blithely. Her hair is up, and she takes a moment to reach for the telephone, to call down to the front desk. A few words, an order for breakfast and aspirin. Still, there is a decidedly amused tone to her voice as she does all of this.  
  
"One of us managed to leave half a glass of water in its glass, if you can manage to move," she tells him, pulling herself onto a proper seat on the table.

 

"I can manage it," he says. "I simply don't want to."  
  
He's not being childish, he's being passive aggressive. There is a difference.

 

"Of course you don't."  
  
She is, possibly, a little _too_ amused by the entire situation. Or perhaps she's just amused enough. After all, she had not turned the telephone's ringer to its highest setting, or instructed the front desk to call her back. But then, she also does not draw the blinds closed, and instead slides off her perch on the desk and walks back over to the bed (she ignores the fact that she had planned to sleep alone when she'd checked into the hotel), picking up the half-full glass in question.  
  
"I did warn you, you realize."

 

"Yes," he says, staring at the glass and scowling before reaching out for it. "But then you were more interesting than the water. I think it's possible you're to blame for this."

 

She considers pulling the glass out of his reach and draining it dry, just to prove a point, or to increase his low-grade suffering. She considers it, but eventually just lets him have the glass. It would be, after all, idiotic to meet Moran without having _some_ insurance, she reminds herself.  
  
"I'll take it as a compliment."

 

"Oh, will you?" he mutters, drinking the water. He should be grateful, but he's never handled low-grade irritation and pain well. He prefers to sulk in it and revel in it. He wonders, idly, if the Woman would understand.  
  
"I assume you've formulated a method of finding out what he likes," Sherlock says. "In a leader, that is. And manipulating accordingly." He really does assume this. The Woman is nothing if not an excellent manipulator.

 

"You're fretting, Mr. Holmes," she tells him.   
  
There is, in her mind, no need to answer the question. It's _obvious_ that is what she will do, what she has already done. That her seemingly capricious texts to Moran had been to remind him, subconsciously, of Jim Moriarty's moments of more obvious insanity, that they gave enough instruction that he would have felt compelled to respond, to establish a habit of responding when she called. San Salvador had been unexpected proof, that he was interested, intrigued, curious enough to intervene, to save her, to hear what she had to say.  
  
The fact that she already held some of his purse strings no doubt helped.  
  
There is a sharp, crisp knock on the hotel door, three raps.

 

"Heaviest pressure on the second knock," Sherlock says, taking another sip of water. "Room service."

 

"I called after you were awake," she dismisses, heading for the door, heedless of her state of relative undress. No doubt room service saw worse on a regular basis, and from individuals who wore more less well.   
  
"Far too obvious to be considered a proper deduction. You'll have to do better," she adds, opening the door and gesturing for the young man doing his best to stare at his feet to wheel in the cart.

 

"Did you?" he dismisses as well. He was, of course, paying attention. The smell of food and the promise of something for his head makes him sit up, albeit unwillingly. The state of the two of them makes things relatively obvious. Two beds, one with only a brief sign of having been sat upon, the other slept in by two people, as well as the hangovers...it would read like a book to Sherlock, probably to the Woman, too. The man bringing them room service just looks uncomfortable by the Woman's lack of attire.  
  
"Not one of Mycroft's," Sherlock says, yawning.

 

It is obvious, no doubt even to the bellhop, that his discomfort amuses Irene. She nods at him, smirking, and waves him off. At the gesture, he makes for the door as if rabid wolves were at his heels, and the smirk becomes a laugh.  
  
"If he were one of your brother's, I'd be concerned," she answers, pouring herself a glass of orange juice from the cart. "It should take him nearly a week to unravel the mess of potential leads we left him in Montreal."

 

"Don't underestimate Mycroft," Sherlock warns, reaching for the aspirin. "He unravels messes with his morning biscuits."

 

She waves a negligent hand, brushing away his warning, before uncovering the trays. There's a bowl of fruit, yogurt, some pastries, and an omelet, heavy with cheese and meat. She liberates a scone from the tray and takes it with her juice glass back to the desk by the window.  
  
"Are you suddenly not confident in our collective ability to outwit him?" she asks, taking a bite of said scone. Dry, but it will do.  
  
"The omelet will do wonders for a hangover."

 

"Certainly not," he says. "But we must keep on our toes, Woman."  
  
He crinkles his nose at the omelet and goes back to his glass of water.  
  
"Digestion slows me down." His stomach may protest that he's wrong, but he knows he isn't.

 

"And so does a pounding headache," she retorts. The juice is a necessity; the water the night before might have staved off her own reaction to alcohol, but she needs the fluids. The scone, on the other hand, well, she is hungry.  
  
"Don't think I'm doing this for your good, Mr. Holmes. If you're going to insist on being there when I meet Moran, I'd rather your body be hampered by digestion than your mind by pain."

 

"You're worse than John," he grumbles, but he takes the plate anyway and cuts off a piece with his fork. "How obvious are you planning on dressing? Obvious enough for him to see you at 100 feet?"

 

"I'm far more likely to ignore social niceties than the good doctor," she dismisses, looking out over the falls. The weather reports had been correct. A thick fog covered the bottom third of the falls, and the foaming rapids were all but utterly obscured. Terrible day to take in the tunnels and the view, but perhaps exactly what she wanted.  
  
She nods. "He'll think it means he's won, if he doesn't have to look for a disguise."

 

"Or he'll think you're overconfident," he says. "Might resort to a backup plan."  
  
He takes a bite of the omelet. It's very good, but he has no real interest in it, apart from it curing his headache and appeasing the Woman.  
  
"You do have a way of standing out."

 

Her mouth curves into a smile at that, and she swallows a bite of scone. It settles unobtrusively, inoffensively in her stomach. "Compliments _and_ obedience. Perhaps I should suggest you drink more often."   
  
She sets the juice glass down on the table next to her, and draws up her legs. "Any backup plan he'd resort to would be less meticulously planned. And if he resorts to them because he thinks I'm being overconfident... That's simply more opportunities for him to make mistakes."

 

He lets out a mirthless snort. "As long as those mistakes don't end up accidentally killing you."  
  
A beat.  
  
"Or, more importantly, me." This isn't said with any sort of bravado. His own safety isn't truly the concern here, but he has to at least pretend to save face.

 

They are still dancing around each other, around the white elephant of sentimentality in the room. But it is a mutual dance, an unspoken agreement to avoid the obvious, to couch the things they did in false self-interest. She thinks anyone else would consider it drastically unhealthy.   
  
They are far too extraordinary for things like emotional health.  
  
She sets her half-eaten breakfast down, and untucks herself, heading for the bathroom to pick up a brush and begin twisting her hair back into Irene Adler's elaborate, intricate coif. She ignores the fact that it gives away her restlessness, her own nervous energy about the meeting to be had despite her seeming confidence.  
  
"He knows better than to try something _that_ obviously stupid. Well, he did after London."

 

"Unless he makes a mistake," Sherlock reminds her. He puts down the half-eaten omelet and wipes his mouth with a napkin before rising. He needs his own shower, and to prepare some sort of a disguise, just enough to stay under Moran's radar. He has been vocal about his discomfort with this meeting for a reason. He is certain that if it goes remotely wrong, she could end up shot again. Or worse.  
  
He finishes the water. "Once you get to the Falls, I'll follow," he says. "In case he's watching."

 

The weight of her hair on the back of her head is a familiar comfort, and with every pin that holds it up she feels a little more like Irene Adler of old, and that old confidence creeps into the way she stands, into the way she holds herself. She glances at him in the mirror. "You do realize there is every chance that you've over thought this," she says. It isn't a question.  
  
"It is just as likely that he will come, realize he is over matched, and bend the knee like I expect him to."

 

"Fifty-fifty odds aren't very good, Woman," he says. "I simply want to ensure I can still punch him."  
  
He steps past her towards the shower, not bothering to shoo her away or shut the door. He turns on the water, setting the spray to cold.

 

He steps into the shower and she is not at all bothered by the fact, simply continuing her own preparations, with one motion at a time becoming more and more like Irene Adler.  
  
The lipstick is a shade darker than she likes, but subtleties of the shade would be lost on someone like Moran, and she applies it carefully, a splash of blood against pale skin.   
  
"I'd put it more at seventy-five, twenty-five, personally," she answers over the sound of the shower. "But you wouldn't believe it."

 

This is rather...domestic, he thinks. A bit like the way he lives with John, without the awkwardness John can get when Sherlock first started wandering around without clothes on. The Woman has seen him, knows him intimately. It doesn't matter as much.  
  
"No, I wouldn't," he replies. "He's used to Jim. Far less predictable, he may be preparing to face someone like him."

 

She blots the lipstick on a square of tissue and scrutinizes herself in the mirror. She looks utterly like herself, even in the rumpled, sleep-wrinkled shirt. She sheds it, leaving it in a puddle on the floor, and smiles.  
  
"Are you calling me predictable, Mr. Holmes?"  
  
She has been, she realizes, because she has been too focused on _him_ , on being tied to him in this way that is exhilarating and fascinating, when she needs to remember that this is temporary, that she needs Moriarty's web intact, that she needs _Moran_ and his resources. Because she wants a life back, one that is more than simply drifting through aliases and misbehaviours, one that is hers and not built on the protections of those she's blackmailed on or the sufferance of the Holmes boys.  
  
He hadn't closed the door, so she steps out of the bathroom, wearing not a stitch, her shoulders squared.  
  
There are clothes in the duffel bag (kicked pushed shoved to the floor at some point during the night), clothes that will remind Moran of the woman who had gone toe-to-toe with Jim Moriarty, but more important is the reminder in the mirror, that it is time she returns to _herself_ , to be Irene Adler again in the truest sense of the word, to be unpredictable cruelty, to be capricious wiles and to take what she wanted again.

 

"Never, Woman," he says as she steps out of the bathroom. He shampoos his hair, noting her change in tone, and a change in the way she addresses him. She becomes someone different when she is Irene Adler, the way he changes when he becomes the Consulting Detective. There is a line, he imagines, between who one is and who one invents. He wonders where hers is. He also imagines there's a comfort to that persona, the way he finds comfort in being the one who knows everything. They put each other at a disadvantage.  
  
He rinses and grabs a towel, running it over his hair as he steps out into the room again, moving to his own clothes.

 

By the time he stepped back into the hotel room proper, she was already half dressed in a white pencil skirt and blouse, the skirt subtly pinstriped but clearly well made, and a matching blazer tossed out on the bed. She will, as soon as she slips on the blazer, look utterly severe, cold and business-like, with nothing but the splash of blood red on her lips as colour.   
  
She indulges in a wistful moment wishing for heels, before slipping on the flats her injury has forced her to. She turns to him, and for a moment is seized with an irrational desire to kiss him, to mark him with the trace of red lipstick, to leave something of herself behind. But it is a fleeting though, and instead she shrugs on the blazer, and smiles.  
  
"Shall I leave you to dress the part?"

 

"In theory, I should be fairly unrecognizable," he says. He has the irrational desire to undo her hair, to kiss away the dark red lipstick. Passion, of course. Sentiment. It doesn't help them in this situation, and it would only waste valuable time. Still, the desire is there.  
  
He steps over to the passports, picking them up and offering her one. He doesn't need to look to know there is one for each of them, and they're connected.  
  
"I'm certain you'll see me," he says.

 

She doesn't reach for him, doesn't curl her fingers around his, doesn't slide her fingers through his hair or leave traces of lipstick on his skin, doesn't indulge in that momentary sentimentality that had gripped her. The most she allows herself is to brush her fingers against his when she takes the passport, to slip it into the inner pocket of her blazer, along with her mobile.  
  
She wants to say something, but 'good-bye' isn't fitting. "You can't miss me," she says instead, and heads out the door.

 

He watches the door shut behind her and he finds himself smiling. He would want her no other way than how she is, that mixture of dominatrix and vicious businesswoman. The one who predominates the whole of her sex. He does not love her, no. It is so much more than that.  
  
He dresses, pulling on a simple set of trousers and a shirt before there is a knock at the door. His eyebrows knit together. Did she send him room service?


	6. The Minor Fall, The Major Lift

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Irene Adler's plan to acquire the loyalty of one Sebastian Moran goes awry when Moran decides to take out some insurance in the form of one Sherlock Holmes. Will Irene's desire for Jim Moriarty's network outweigh her sentiment for a single consulting detective, or will Sherlock Holmes' sentiment be the downfall of her plans?

 

The weather is horrid for sight-seeing, with the thick fog obscuring the falls, but there are still tourists around, those stubborn enough to come down to the observation deck. The bright yellow poncho meant to keep the mist off is irritating, and does its job poorly, so Irene retreats to the tunnels beneath the Falls without said poncho, watching the sparse tourists come through.  
  
An elderly woman, with two children. Grandmother, judging by the solicitous way the children treat her. A short, dark haired woman, Chinese judging by her features, a single sapphire on her left hand winking in the diffuse light suggesting engagement. Irene is momentarily concerned that the Black Lotus has found them again, before said woman begins arguing good-naturedly with the blond man at her side. The ring on his left hand glitters with drops of spray. Not engaged then, married.  
  
Irene relaxes, and watches again, sending a text into the ether.  
  
`Jim should have taught you better, Sebastian. Never keep a woman waiting.`

 

The return text comes a few minutes later. I was waiting for your boyfriend. I know you don't like doing things alone.  
  
Goading, picking a fight. From his position, Sherlock thinks he can see four possible places the Woman could have gone into, though he's certain that Moran knows exactly where she is. Sherlock stays silent, waiting for Moran to make the first move.

 

The message arrives, and Irene's eyes narrow, her lips thinning unconsciously. He is goading her, she realizes, acknowledges, and refuses to visibly react. Still, it does not keep her from shifting, from moving and watching. She eyes the couple again. The woman is clearly neither Sherlock nor Moran, and while Moran could conceivably be disguised as the blond, his easy nature with the woman in question and the obviously romantic and sexual nature of their relationship makes that extremely unlikely.  
  
An older gentleman approaches, his features momentarily concealed by the hood of the yellow poncho, and Irene searches his features before texting back.  
  
`You're still all talk, dear. Don't bore me.`

 

Moran lets out a grunt of a laugh, and Sherlock thinks it's a bad sign. Twenty-five, seventy-five, she'd said. How wrong she was.  
  
Very little about this whole situation is a good sign. He'd say as much, if he didn't have the cloth in his mouth. Moran turns to him and points his camera phone in Sherlock's direction.  
  
"Say cheese," Moran says. Sherlock can't do anything of the sort. He can't even warn the Woman about the sniper rifle behind Moran's leg.

 

The reception in the tunnels is sporadic, and it takes a few moments longer than normal to receive the photo. But when it loads, Irene's hands tighten on the phone, and a cold knot of tension clenches in her stomach. Something flickers across her face, but it is gone in seconds, even minor irritation draining from her expression to something blank, though her pale eyes all but spark.  
  
She ignores the urge to speak, and instead texts back. `That's twice you've taken what's mine, pet. If you're so desperate for my attention, I suggest actually showing up.`

 

Moran lets out another laugh, though this one is particularly less smug. Sherlock takes in his shoes, the state of his fingernail, and decides that the Woman was right about him staying in the casino, but he'd been out since around 3am, probably scoping out where they might've been. This wasn't an act of desperation, it was an act of self-preservation, protection, but he has no guidance. Moran is like a dog chasing a taxi. Now that he has this precious piece, he has no idea how to bargain with her for it.  
  
Oh, the Woman is rather good at reading people. Moran needs someone to hold his leash.  
  
He watches Moran typing and tilts his head to read.  
  
`Consider him my insurance. Things go south, he goes over the falls. A proper fall this time.`

 

`Insurance is only good if you convince me you're not trying to pass me damaged goods. Didn't Jim teach you better?`

Irene stares at the words on the screen for a long moment, considering them, and glances around the tunnels and the observation deck. The sparse crowds will make it easier to have any sort of privacy, for better or worse. She can feel panic beginning to grow, and she forces it back, forces herself to find some reserve of cold numbness to match the expressionless look on her face.

It will not hold, but it will have to be enough, for the moment. She sends the text. And just as quickly sends another.

`Both of you here, five minutes, or I start snipping. First your purse strings, then that casino where you're hiding, and on and on, one a minute. You'll have nowhere to go to ground even before you make it back to the hotel, love.`

 

From Moran's expression, Sherlock gets the impression that the Woman is scolding him. Or threatening him. Moran's face is stony, but surprisingly easy to read. Sherlock can see why Jim wanted him around. He's a vicious mockery of all of the things that John is.  
  
 _It would be so funny._ For Jim, perhaps. For Sherlock, certainly not.  
  
And he'll still be dead.  
  
Moran actually turns the phone so Sherlock can see.  
  
"Seems to have her priorities on backwards," Moran says. There's something oddly affectionate in the way he speaks. She must remind him of Jim.

 

Irene narrows her eyes at the five stark words on her screen, and forces herself to breathe. To remember exactly what she'd told herself before, that she was too close, that she needed to be Irene Adler again, vicious and careless. She glanced about her, the tunnels damp and mostly empty as she reviews Moran's words.   
  
_Over the falls._ The photo Moran had sent flashes in her mind. Gagged. Hardly unnoticeable. So he wasn't at the top of the falls. There were too many people there, even in this weather, too much security watching for daredevils and suicides for that to be a proper threat. But a fall, somewhere higher up, somewhere where he could _see._  
  
She glanced down the tunnels again, her mind racing along a mental map of the area. Not the platform itself, too much water, too low, hardly a fall worth seeing, worth showing. Somewhere above then. Somewhere less obtrusive, less likely for a tourist to notice a gagged man held against his will.  
  
The observation platform a few stories above comes to mind, and Irene begins walking, ducking into one of the tunnels, and taking the stairway up. She makes a phone call as she takes the stairs, trusting the echo of the rocks and the roar of the water to mask her voice from anyone approaching. To the casino where Moran had been staying. A few words, then she sends a text.  
  
`If he dies, what does that get ``_you_``? Think carefully, pet.`

 

Sherlock works with the binds on his hand. Moran is clearly former navy, from the knots used, and the dampness of the knots make them insanely difficult to untie, even if Sherlock's captor is wrapped up in his mobile.  
  
You don't know what I want.  
  
Moran starts to pace. Sherlock shifts again, moving his leg that much closer to the rifle. Moran's foot suddenly comes down on Sherlock's calf.  
  
"Don't even think about it," he snaps.

 

His answer is precisely what she wants it to be, but she doesn't smile, doesn't revel in being _right_. Because the feeling that threatens to swallow up the brittle numbness she's wrapped herself in is worse than it had been in London. There had been shock then, surprise. Not now. Not anymore. Now her mind is too busy working through scenarios and knowing she had to be _right_ with every step.  
  
She takes the stairs hurriedly, quietly, nearly slipping once on the wet steps and catching herself with her injured leg against the rail. Pain focuses. She used it, wielded it, and she uses it now. There is no need to respond with another text, but as she nears the observation platform above and its small visitor's center, she is more careful, cursing the lack of the yellow poncho she had discarded earlier. It would have been useful now, to get closer to the visitor's center where she's now almost positive they are.  
  
 _Almost_ positive. She hates that almost.  
  
She presses herself up against the concrete wall of the center, creeping towards the door, straining to hear voices from within over the noise of the falls.  
  
Or the telltale noise of an incoming telephone call to Moran's phone.

 

"What the fuck do you mean it's been declined?" Moran snaps. "That is Jim Moriarty's credit card, don't you know who that is?"  
  
From the way Moran's face twists, Sherlock thinks that no, the girl on the phone does not know who that is. Moran's anger translates into stepping harder on Sherlock's calf, and Sherlock bites back a cry of pain. No, this is the Woman winning. He won't ruin it by being in pain.  
  
Moran hangs up the phone. "What would Jim do?" he mutters. Tug on his leash a bit tighter, the way the Woman is, Sherlock thinks.  
  
`You're not making it any easier for him.`

 

The snap of his voice, jagged edged with frustration, breaks through the noise of the waterfall, and Irene rests a hand on the door. She twists, and the knob gives way easily. Sloppy, that. But it is a good thing Moran is sloppy, she reminds herself. It means he is on edge, liable to make mistakes. To _miss_.  
  
The interior of the visitor's center is as humid as the exterior, and in the reflection of the glass walled observing room, she can see motion, hear a mutter. She slaps the phone in her pocket to silent a moment before it buzzes in her hand.  
  
A glance at the text, a deep silent breath. She lets moments pass. Ticks them away in loud, pointed silence.  
  
"And you're making it far worse on yourself, Sebastian," she answers, her voice like the crack of a whip as she remains around the corner, not yet stepping into view.

 

The Woman's voice cracking in the room makes Moran start, his foot off of Sherlock's leg and his hand back for his pistol. Sloppy, revealing what weapons he has before she's even appeared. Sherlock turns his bruised leg, and aims it for the rifle. It can't help her in the short term, but if he loses that gun, it could save her.  
  
"Half the time you're wiping us out," Moran shouts, his Yorkshire accent sharp. "The other half, you're sending me texts like you want to be my mother."  
  
He takes half a step away from Sherlock, towards where he suspects the Woman is standing.  
  
"Which is it, Adler?"

 

This is the game they've played for months, she reminds herself. The game of cat and mouse, of manipulation and using what people _liked_ against them. Irene tries to remind herself of that.  
  
She does not think of how high the stakes are.  
  
"You haven't figured it out by now?" she asks, her voice coming from directly opposite of where Moran is facing. She finds herself wishing for the heels again, for the staccato click of heels to punctuate the conversation. She steps around the corner, all brittle poise and icy composure. "It's obvious, dear. You get to choose."

 

Moran turns, surprised but hiding it. A military-trained man, used to situations where he's out of control. But he always has a leader.  
  
"Join or be wiped out, I assume," Moran says. "Because I don't get wiped out easily, do I?"  
  
He points the gun at Sherlock's head. Sherlock rolls his eyes.  
  
"You get to choose, too." Moran adds.

 

She wouldn't have had to see Sherlock's face to know that he was rolling his eyes, she knows it, because she too is looking utterly unimpressed by Moran's theatrics.   
  
"And you think _I_ don't know what you want," she scoffs, taking a step closer. His agitation is painfully clear. A military man in his training, but used to taking orders, _liking_ orders.   
  
And she is silk and steel personified, her disdain obvious in her voice. "What exactly would killing him get you, do you think. Do you think I'd stop hunting you down if he were dead?" An imperious nod towards Sherlock. "Ask him. He'll tell you he's the only thing keeping you alive at the moment." A pause. "Well, alive and mildly wealthy."

 

Moran lets out a snort, and Sherlock knows that's because he has no intention of removing Sherlock's gag any time soon. One too many well-timed comments earned Sherlock that.  
  
"You can shut down one credit card," Moran says. "So what? I won't die as easily as Jim."  
  
The gun goes back up, pointed at her again. "What do you want?"

 

The gun is back on her, and Irene relaxes minutely. It'll be obvious to Sherlock, but not Moran, Moran is too focused, too nervous, too lead-less, to recognize it.   
  
"Jim ruined it, you know," she said conversationally as she takes another step forward, oozing confidence as she begins to circle Moran. "He had all pieces in the world, could play the game, make people dance on strings, and have you clean a few idiots up for him, then leave you to your little jaunts. But then he had to go and get bored, get obsessed, and get himself killed. Now you're living off the scraps he left, trying to stay one step ahead of the wolves at your door. And you know someone is coming, someone's going to realize the throne's empty. And they're going to come gunning for you before they take that crown."

 

Sherlock notices the change in the Woman's face. She should be more worried about herself. This is aggravating. She shouldn't even be here.  
  
"He should've let me kill him, too," Moran says. "But he was all about bloody games."  
  
So, Sherlock thinks, is the Woman. But in a very different way.  
  
"You want the throne," he says. "You want me to clean up idiots for you. Let me kill him, now." He looks back at Sherlock. "I can't miss from this distance."

 

She tsks dismissively at his answer. "Too eager, pet, too eager. I don't want just the throne. I want _everything_. Everything useful. The idiot in San Salvador was useless, a mess waiting to happen. You took care of that for me." A hint of approval in her voice, just a hint.  
  
She continues to circle him, and she can tell it discomfits him, to have to continually move to keep her in his sights. "The drug dealers in Hong Kong, went and got themselves infiltrated by an American CIA agent. Now they're gone. The girl you took. She could have been useful, getting an eye on the Iceman. Can't do that now." Displeasure now. Carrot, stick.  
  
Her slow pacing brings Moran between her and Sherlock, pulling Moran's attention as far away from his captive as possible. "You could be useful, pet; you liked cleaning up for Jim. And you've gotten used to the creature comforts. But it's hard wearing the crown, isn't it? Knowing there might be a bullet in the back of your brain any minute. Better collecting the paycheck than trying to be king."

 

Oh, she is very, very good. He wants to tell her as much, but it's impossible, he just has to wait. She's putting Moran in his place, and she's not doing it in a way that's going to insult him. Sherlock even thinks that he shouldn't have doubted her, but that is a sentiment that will never, _ever_ be voiced.  
  
"I don't wanna be king," Moran says. "Jim did that. This one ruined it."  
  
Sherlock rolls his eyes again and gets a boot back to his calf.

 

Something heated and utterly _possessive_ runs through her when Moran digs his boot in. It isn't sentiment, just simple knowledge that in a sense, Sherlock Holmes is _hers_. She reaches over and grips the front of Moran's shirt, pulling him face to face with her.  
  
"Jim _lost_. He got caught in the game. I won't." She gives him a razor sharp smile, her face close to his, forcing his attention to her, to focus on her words rather than the little souvenir pocketknife she'd pulled from the racks as she'd slipped in that is now on the ground and that she kicks towards Sherlock.   
  
"This is how it goes, pet. You work for me, and I keep the people who want the crown off that little head of yours. You don't, and I clean house. I won't kill you, love, but I'll make you suffer, make you run. And salt the ground of everything you knew he had. Make sure there's no money left, nowhere to go to ground, no one that'll have you. Sounds familiar, doesn't it?"

 

The pocketknife falls to the ground and Sherlock bends slightly for it, curling his fingers around the handle and bringing the blade back to work on the knots. Her hand is in Moran's shirt, and Sherlock feels a spike of panic in him. She's pushing it, she's pushing what he'll allow her to do before he kills her.  
  
Oddly enough, he isn't concerned about dying himself. He knows Moran wants to kill him. It's her that has a chance. Moran won't kill her if she plays her cards right. It's entirely possible he won't kill Sherlock, too.  
  
Moran's face is soft again, just for an instant. She must be reminding him of Jim. Sherlock imagines Jim allowed Moran to think of him as his friend, as part of his little "funny" experiment.  
  
"Take your hands off me," Moran says, voice low.

 

She knows she is close, in the tiny tells, in the way his expression softens, in the way tension ebbs from his face when she pushes the right buttons. She knows which strings to tug, she always knows, but she _needs_ to be right, this time. She needs to play, to judge the time it takes to cut rope with a little pocket knife.  
  
"Or what, Sebastian," she challenges, her eyes never leaving his. She leans away _just_ enough that he would subconsciously consider it less of a threat. "Don't make the same threat now. Or I'll get bored and find someone more interesting."

 

The tiny pocketknife does not cut as effectively as Sherlock would prefer, but it is slowly slicing through the rope. Moran's knots are complicated, but with enough applied force, he can free one hand, leaving the other bound but mobile.  
  
He has options here. He can slice Moran's back tendons, leaving him incapable of defending himself against a frontal attack. He can stab Moran's arm, remove the gun from the situation entirely. Or---or he can try to allow the Woman to negotiate. The latter seems the hardest.  
  
"How do I know you're not just like the others trying to take his crown, eh?" Moran demands.

 

She wants to break Moran's gaze, wants to be able to glance down, to see how far Sherlock has gotten on his bonds, to tell with a look what next step would be most expedient. But she can't, not without giving the game away. Not when this isn't simply another one of their jaunts, one of their _misbehaviours_. She wants Moran's loyalty, and to do that she cannot simply leave behind a merry swath of destruction.

 

This is what she wants. She remembers that.

She rolls her eyes with obvious scorn at Moran's question. "Come now. You know the answer to that. Jim knew," she scolds. She inclines her head ever so slightly to Sherlock. Not enough to really draw Moran's attention, just enough to make it obvious who she was indicating. "He knows. I'm better than Jim was. I beat Sherlock Holmes. I fooled Jim Moriarty."'

She is regal poise and glacial ice all at once as she steps into his space once more, punctuating the point. "And you know it in your bones, darling."

She doesn't ask him to join her, not yet. There is, after all, Moscow to consider. And she is not yet ready to give this up. But the seed is planted in his head, she can see it in his eyes. The possibility. The long leash to his collar that he doesn't even realize is there.

Besides, she did promise Sherlock he could punch the man, and best to do it before he was truly hers.

 

Moran's face goes hard. He doesn't like hearing that she's better than Jim, though Sherlock can tell that he knows it's true. He must've had a lot of loyalty to Jim. That's good, Sherlock tells himself. It means he might gain the same amount of respect for the Woman. Might.  
  
Sherlock undoes the last of his binds and stretches out his wrist very briefly, to let the Woman see he's free before he puts his hands back behind his back. Can't have Moran lose his sense of confidence.  
  
"What do you want?" Moran says. "Just spit it out."

 

She sees movement out of the corner of her eye, a deliberate motion from Sherlock, and the knot of tension (she refuses to think of it as fear) in her stomach loosens. With him freed, walking away from Moran became a certainty, and the scope of her game changes now to only Moran, to the leash around his neck.

"Asking me to be indelicate?" she asked. Her voice turns dangerous, regal poise falling away to honed steel and that same glacial ice, her eyes hard. Moran seems to notice it as well; from this close she can see his throat work, swallowing hard despite his sneering bravado.

"I want you to _think_ , Sebastian. I want you to think about what it would mean if Jim's throne stays empty. I want you to think about where you would be if someone else who doesn't like you quite as much as I do wears the crown. I want you to think about not having Jim's credit card, about what would happen if the rest of Jim's web is dead and you're the only one left, and everyone knows know it's only a matter of time before you are and they won't hide you."

She jabs a finger into his chest, the nail sharp and biting despite the cloth. Another swallow. Good. Her voice softens. "And I want you to think about how that doesn't have to happen. How you can have exactly what you had before, and I like being alive far too much to ruin it just to prove a point."

Irene lets her hand fall back to her side, stepping back out of his space. She expects Sherlock will read her body language well enough to be ready to move. She tries not to think of the amount of inherent trust in this. "And just in case you decide _not_ to think, Sherlock, do you want to tell him what'll happen if he comes after either of us again or should I?"

 

Sherlock's hand goes around the sniper rifle, and his other removes the gag. He moves to his feet the moment the Woman addresses him, and the butt of the gun goes up.  
  
"Allow me."


	7. Composing Hallelujah

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Their encounter with Sebastian Moran displays the dangerous levels of sentiment Irene Adler and Sherlock Holmes have entangled themselves in with each other. But will they choose their sentiment or their opposing goals, or are they stubborn enough to insist they can have it all?

Moran turns, and Sherlock pushes the gun forward, slamming the butt of the offending rifle into Moran's face, hitting him in the nose and causing him to collapse as though his strings had been cut. Sherlock lets out a satisfied snort. He looks back up at the Woman as he tosses the rifle over the falls.

 

Moran drops like a sack of rocks, and Irene leans over him, checking his pulse, pockets, ensuring he's still breathing, merely unconscious, saying, "I think you enjoyed that a little too much."  
  
When she's satisfied herself that Moran isn't dead, she looks up from the assassin's unconscious body to Sherlock. Only then does the nauseating tension that has had her in a vise grip wash away, leaving her feeling shaky with the sour aftertaste of fear.  
  
The inexplicable desire from when she'd left the hotel, the desire to pull him to her and mark him with lipstick and bruises returns tenfold, but there too is that nauseating fear that she had refused to allow herself to feel. And with that comes anger for feeling it _now_ and she all but trembles with the contradictory emotions.  
  
She starts for him, but once she is within arm's reach she hesitates, and instead of appearing vulnerable, of wanting to be _certain_ he is alright, she raises a hand and slaps him full across the cheek.  
  
Her other hand shakes. She closes it into a fist, nails biting into her palm.

 

The slap is sharp and painful across his cheek, and he lets out a less than satisfied snort.  
  
"I was actually expecting a left," he says. An utter lie. He had no idea what to expect from her.  
  
He takes another step forward, curling his hand around her wrist. He can feel her pulse under his fingertips, feel the way she's shaking. At first, he genuinely doesn't understand. She was much, much more afraid than he was? He imagines this would've been his reaction, had the situation been reversed. Moran had a dangerous advantage over her.  
  
"Let's go," he says. "When he wakes up, he'll have a lot to think about."

 

His cheek had been warm and solid when she connected, and her hand stings with a reassuring pain after the fact. His grip on her wrist is tight, and she knows that her pulse must be racing beneath his fingers, that he can feel her shake with fear and relief and adrenaline.   
  
She wants to pull away, so that her body no longer betrays her sentiment. But she doesn't, because she is reassured by his hand against her wrist. She nods curtly, because it is the only thing she can do, and turns towards the door of the observation deck.   
  
"If you'd known what to expect, I doubt I'd have found you in that position," she sneers. " _Kidnapped_ by Sebastian Moran, of all people."

 

"Kidnapped is not the right word," Sherlock says. "Subdued. Ambushed. I wasn't prepared for him to appear so suddenly after you left. He must've been following us."  
  
He nudges Moran with his shoe, but shakes his head. Moran, in Sherlock's opinion, would be an excellent asset for her. Which is to say, he hates the man, and particularly hates having him against the Woman. He's far too dangerous.  
  
"Are you all right?" he asks.

 

His opinion of Moran is obvious in the way he nudges the unconscious man, but Irene has to laugh, brittle and sharp, at his question. "I should be asking you that question. You were _subdued_ after all." she answers. She gestures towards the staircase back up the falls, towards the hotels and the city proper.  
  
"We can take his vehicle. It'll give him more time to think." Still, she looks back at him, and she still has not pulled out of his grip on her wrist, as if she actually does want to ask if he is alright.

 

He lifts his other hand up to his head, to indicate where he'd been hit.  
  
"I'll heal," he says.  
  
She saved him, he realizes. He finds himself smiling, just a little. They've saved each other, once again. He's tempted to kiss her, but ignores that desire. Sentiment.  
  
"He'll have nowhere to stay when he wakes," he says, releasing her wrist.

 

He smiles, and she bristles at it, as if certain he is hiding laughter at her obvious sentiment. If she weren't so busy ignoring her own reactions, she'd realize that was an impossibility, that he has always been more confused about her emotions, her sentiment, than anything.  
  
He lets go of her wrist, and she seems to curl in on herself without the contact, clasping her hands together to still the nervous energy that keeps her fingers shaking. "Good," she says sharply, her strides quick and unsteady in small bursts. Still, there is some of her cold cruelty in it. "Let him think on exactly how he'd live without my help."  
  
She's outpaced him by a meter, perhaps a bit more, when she stops, turns to face him. "I can't leave you alone, can I, Mr. Holmes?"

 

She stops in front of him and he continues walking, until he has all but pressed himself against her, in her personal space.  
  
"No," he admits, voice low and to just a shade of teasing. "Nor should you."  
  
Her nervousness confuses him, but he felt no fear for himself this time. No doubt in her ability to sway Moran, despite his earlier words. Only doubt in Moran's patience.

 

She does not want to be reassured by the closeness of his presence, does not want to feel herself lean into him. She doesn't want to, but she does anyway, the shaking in her fingers ebbing as she looks up at him, at the teasing note in his voice.   
  
It frustrates her to know that if she'd had to choose, if Moran had been more stubborn, less obviously easy to play, that she would have left Jim Moriarty's assassin dead to save him.  
  
Dangerous sentiment. She _wants_ Jim's network, wants to misbehave and bend the world to her whims. But she wants this too, this closeness and this game that they play with each other.   
  
She won't choose between the two. The world cannot make her.  
  
Instead of answering, she reaches a hand up to the back of his neck, to pull him to her and press her mouth to his. She kisses him fiercely, with the fleeting desire she'd felt in the hotel before she'd left, the same desire that had come back to her mere moments ago after knowing they were both, for the moment, safe.   
  
_This_ is what she wants at the moment, and the world is going to bend for her, whether it likes it or not.

 

He puts an arm around her waist to pull her closer. Here, under the safety of the falls and with a momentary respite from danger, they can let their guard down. Just for a moment. It's not as though they love each other, he tells himself. That would be far too dangerous.  
  
To anyone else, they may have just looked like amorous lovers. But to them, this is something different, something unique. Her kiss is fierce, passionate, and he returns it in kind. He imagines the intensity is because, if the situation required it, he'd be quite dead instead of her giving up Jim's web.  
  
The idea should be more upsetting than it is.

 

No doubt, if any passerby saw them, they'd expect the worst, the most salacious result possible. But they are Irene Adler and Sherlock Holmes, and that would have been too ordinary. Sex was never the real goal for them, never the means nor the end. It was simply, sometimes, an inevitable result of their games of intellect.  
  
And no matter how fierce and demanding her kiss is, it is simply a kiss, to way to reassure herself that they are as they have been despite the near brush with death and Sebastian Moran. She pulls away, and a jolt of pleasure runs through her at the sight of her lipstick on his skin.   
  
"Then I suppose I'm staying," she answers, low and breathless.

 

His voice is equally breathy. "Good."  
  
He moves his hand from her waist and carefully, cautiously, takes her hand. A simple touch. An intimate one, borne out of trust that one would not pull the other in the wrong direction.  
  
He knows there's lipstick across his mouth, but he can't think to care about it as much.

 

Her fingers tangle with his as he takes her hand, and her hand is steady beneath his. This is dangerous, of course, their trust in each other, but this is a holiday, a mutual holiday from death, from even how they want themselves to be to the world.  
  
"Vienna?" she suggests. "Or is there somewhere you've always wanted to visit?"

 

"Vienna will be perfect," he says. "We'll need to depart from further west, of course. Keep Mycroft off of our trail."  
  
It will be good, he says. One step closer to Moscow, to separating. But, really, he finds himself looking forward to seeing the Woman in action again. Utterly herself, knocking down those who stand in her way.  
  
"We have a train to catch."

 

She falls into step with him and silently considers Vienna, considers the police officer who was sharp-eyed enough to see ghosts. She thinks about Moscow, and the now-visible end to their holiday. What she doesn't think about is his grip, warm and familiar, against her hand.

"You won't convince me not to take up Jim's network," she says suddenly. "Not even if Moran is an idiot and refuses."

 

"No," he agrees, his lips twitching into a teasing smile. "But you won't stop me from disrupting it when I see fit."

 

That makes her smile. That will be how they are best, she thinks. Even better than these little moments of intimacy and physicality. "No, but it does make me wonder what your aim would be," she answers in kind. "To have me caught and at the Commonwealth's mercy?"

 

"Why would I want you at _their_ mercy?" he replies, arching an eyebrow at her.  
  
Moran would be a fool not to follow the Woman. If nothing else, her fearlessness makes her an ideal replacement for Jim. That, and her fearlessness is tempered by sanity, something Jim lacked. She'd give Moran real guidance.

 

"Not denying the aim, just the intended target I see."   
  
She takes the phone out of her blazer's pocket, and without bothering to hide it from him, sends a text to Moran's phone. `You'll hear from me again. Soon.`  
  
She raises an eyebrow back at him, all feigned innocence that she knows he will not believe. "Whose tender mercies would you try to have me at, I wonder."

 

He makes a face. " _Tender?_ "  
  
He scans the car park and moves towards a small, nondescript blue sedan. He recognizes it from before, when he was being shoved into the back of it. A hateful little thing, but it will get them where they need to go and ruin Moran's evening far more than it already has been ruined.

 

The blue sedan is so nondescript and forgettable that for a moment Irene wondered if Moran had chosen it on purpose. But a second glance at the window shows it is a rental, and whatever credit she might have given Moran for the choice is dismissed as simple luck.  
  
She laughs softly, however, at the face he makes in response to her words and sways into him. "And what adjective would you have preferred?"

 

"Inventive," he says without hesitation. "Creative. Enigmatic."  
  
He could be these things in a merciful manner, he supposes.  
  
He steps over to the driver's side and, considering his head, lets out a small sigh. Also, the Woman _did_ just save him, whether he'll openly admit it or not.  
  
"You'll drive?" he suggests.

 

Another low chuckle, though at the offer she stops, standing in front of the car, and considers him, _really_ studying him after their meeting with Moran. A moment, then she nods once, exchanging the mobile for the keys she'd taken from Moran's unconscious form.   
  
"Should I be concerned you're giving in?" she asks lightly, though within the words there is true concern.

 

He gives her a pointed look. "We're less likely to be so distracted as we drive if you're behind the wheel," he says.  
  
This is, in actuality, probably not even remotely true.

 

She unlocks the car and gives him another look as she steps around him to reach the door to the driver's seat. "Are you admitting I'm a better distraction than you could be?" she asks, again all feigned innocence that she knows he will not be fooled by.

 

"No," he says, immediately, because he would never admit she is better at something than he is. And he could distract her, if he wanted. "The simple fact is, mechanics make it less likely that we'll end up in a similar situation to earlier."  
  
Though that situation _was_ enjoyable. The thrill of it.  
  
He releases her hand, tracing his fingers across her wrist as he does. She steps around him, and he steps away, towards the passenger side.  
  
"And we don't want to miss our train."

 

Her pulse was no longer racing quite as hard as it had been earlier, but at the touch of his fingers against them, it is elevated nonetheless. She shoots him a look across the top of the car before getting in and pulling the seat forward.  
  
Moran's choice was, mercifully, an automatic, and the engine hums inoffensively as she starts it. "Such decorum, Mr. Holmes. I'm almost disappointed."

 

"Well, we can find something flashier later," he says. "As for the train---"  
  
He pauses as he gets to the passenger side door. There's something he isn't telling her, something that he should tell her.  
  
Later.  
  
"We should probably acquire new clothing before the train ride."

 

He hesitates, and she briefly wonders why, deciding that it was likely a relic of Moran's treatment. Irene's mind considers _that_ particular fact for a moment, then decides that there are a thousand little ways Moran would pay for it. Ways that wouldn't press him to anger, to change his mind about agreeing to her, but ways that would wear on him nonetheless.  
  
"And new disguises to match the passports," she agrees, waiting for him to settle into the car. "All things considered, I suppose we shouldn't be quite so obvious."

 

"Particularly you," Sherlock says. He lets that mean that her last encounter with Moran could've been dangerous or deadly, and not what it really means.  
  
"Mycroft will still be looking for us, as well. He taught me most of my disguise techniques," he adds. He pulls out his cigarettes to light one.  
  
"I have a few new tricks he doesn't know, though."

 

"I hope you don't mean you're stealing _my_ tricks now." The day is still early, the weather still discouraging the tourists, and they drive away from the falls with ease.   
  
A sidelong look. "Though it would make looking for you in a foreign city far easier."

 

"I improve on them," he says. "And I would never make it easy for you, Woman. Wouldn't be any fun."  
  
And that's what it will be, he realizes. It will be _fun_. She makes the idea of a holiday not something to be dreaded, but enjoyed. She does that with many things in his life, he realizes.

 

She laughs, not only because it is true, it _wouldn't_ be any fun at all, but because he admits it.   
  
She marvels for a moment at how much they've changed since Montenegro, since they spent one night in each other's company in the Kotor opera house. They'll never admit how far the other has gotten under their skin, but these little things, these are easier now.  
  
"Admitting you'd enjoy yourself? I _am_ flattered."

 

"Don't be," Sherlock responds, immediately. All the same, he holds onto a small smile. He would enjoy himself. He _will_ enjoy himself, every time they take a holiday together. She is offering what he imagines Jim wanted: Someone to play with. And, considering how they play, neither will be bored, but neither will be _dead_ , either.  
  
"I'll enjoy watching you search for me," he says.

 

"Resigning yourself to fleeting enjoyment then," she answers, a small, answering smile on her lips. She is already looking forward to their future holidays, she realizes.   
  
That is why she's planning for Moscow, why she's looking ahead to Moran's acceptance, to how best to consolidate what will be left of Moriarty's web after Sherlock Holmes.  
  
That was far too much sentiment. She ignores it.  
  
"The passports are for a pair from the Netherlands," she says instead. "You told me your Dutch was repulsive, once."

 

"Hasn't improved much, I'm afraid," he replies. "I could be your very British husband, such a failure when it comes to accents and culture."  
  
There's so much to ending Jim's web, he's better off giving it to the Woman. Better off not trying to stop it all. He could be gone for three years or more otherwise. And he does want to get back, he reminds himself. Get back and clear his name. Get back to John.  
  
And he does miss John Watson. A foolish, sentimental thing, but he misses him. His friend.

 

"Sounds like an excuse for you to revel in being boorish about culture," she teases.   
  
She considers places she's been, places she'd like to go. Places that would be useful for rebuilding Jim Moriarty's network from. Sydney comes to mind, but she discards it. She tells herself it is too remote to be useful, too _Australian_. But there too, is a delightful opera house in Sydney.  
  
"French expatriates, perhaps. Excuses the terrible Dutch, and the arrogance."

 

He switches to French immediately. " _It also would make us less of a threat in appearance,_ " he says.  
  
He considers the train ride. For her, it would be an ideal cover. French, couture. Certainly not the Irene Adler from Karachi. For him, he'd need to make absolutely certain that he could drop the disguise at a second's notice.  
  
It could work.

 

Her own French is clearly Parisian, cosmopolitan, sophisticated. No Franco-Provençal _patois_ in her tone.   
  
She checks the signage on the streets, and while the train station is little ways off, she notices an advertisement for a mall, no doubt catering to tourists, but an ideal place to temporarily shed Irene Adler again.  
  
" _Expecting to meet someone who will consider the Dutch a threat_?"

 

" _Absolutely not,_ " he replies. " _You, as yourself, however, can be decidedly intimidating._ "  
  
And intimidation can be recognized.  
  
He makes a face as they pass the sign for the shopping mall. He hates shopping malls, but it will be a good place to check his wounds, prepare his disguise. Formulate a plan.

 

"Shall I play the demure, submissive wife then?" she asks, switching back to English for the moment. She follows the sign's directions to turn off the road, sees the blocky industrial form of the mall ahead.  
  
"You never told me where our train destination would be."

 

"You haven't been able to deduce it yourself?" Sherlock teases.  
  
The very idea of the Woman as a demure, submissive wife is more than a little comical. He has no doubt she could play the part and play it very well, but he imagines the act wouldn't be able to reach her eyes. Even in Karachi, defeated and ready to die, when she turned to look back at him, her eyes were bright with defiance. He imagined her pride would always be her undoing.


	8. A Victory March

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sebastian Moran and Mycroft Holmes are both behind them, and the end of their holiday is on the horizon. But will Irene Adler and Sherlock Holmes make it to the end together, or will their secrets betray them again?

She thinks that she could manage it, to play the submissive, at least in public. The demure wife in public, the demanding dominatrix in private. It has its appeal. She thinks she can play it, she's seen it often enough in her work, but then perhaps that is pride. She is far too much herself to bend without a fight.  
  
Still, Irene toys with the idea.  
  
"I've been busy," she retorts with a smile. "Saving detectives and breaking desperate men's resolve."

 

Sherlock lets out a short laugh. " _Vrai._ "  
  
The mall itself is very nice. Plenty of high-end stores, lots of 'outlets' for designers. Sherlock is extremely disinterested. All the same, they do need clothing. More specifically, they need _luggage_. It will look wrong getting on a long train ride with nothing but a backpack.  
  
"I should change my hair again," he says, his voice implying she might be wise to do the same.

 

Parking is easy to come by in the mall's lot, and Irene edges into a space near a high end leather goods store. She frowns momentarily at his implication. She is finally comfortable in her own skin again, the colour of her hair once more correct, the woman in the mirror no longer a momentary stranger. But there is something to his suggestion. A disguise would be better sold if she _looked_ less obviously like Irene Adler.  
  
"I rather enjoyed the ginger," she says, climbing out of the car. "I'd offer to leave you to put your disguise together in peace, but you _did_ agree that I can't leave you alone."

 

"Did you?" he asks, following suit. "I thought it looked a bit unnatural on me."  
  
Mycroft hasn't even begun to look for them yet, but Sherlock still glares at the cameras outside of the shopping mall. No doubt, the glares will eventually make it to Mycroft's computer screen. Something to be said for that, at least.  
  
"At least, if there's anything to be said about our next destination, Mycroft won't be following. He hates Vienna."

 

"I'd have said the blond, but we hardly have time for a proper job of _that_ ," she points out, hiding a smile at his glare towards the cameras.  
  
She gives the directory of stores a bare once over, then sets off confidently. She gives him a curious look over her shoulder. "Let me guess, he never got over that embarrassing incident with the British diplomat in Vienna."

 

He follows, raising an eyebrow.  
  
"I didn't tell you about that."

 

The curiosity blossoms into a wicked smile in response. She remembers that particular incident. The diplomat whose tastes ran towards both public humiliation and flagrant disregard of the law. He'd discovered that even diplomatic immunity had its limits. Especially when the wives of ministers got involved.  
  
"No," she agrees. "You didn't."

 

She doesn't tell him how she knows, but he imagines there must've been more MOD officials or diplomats who shared secrets in order for her to give them what they liked.  
  
She's very good.  
  
"Such a shame Mycroft's tastes don't run in a direction that could be exploited," he says. Not by the Woman, mind. He doesn't hold anything as silly as jealousy over her, of course. But not _Mycroft_.

 

She doesn't tell him that it was _obvious_ what weakness of Mycroft Holmes' could be exploited. Doesn't because it was obvious, and because to tell him would be to admit that she'd had the opportunity in San Salvador and refused, would be to admit it was more than distaste for the elder Holmes that drove her to Montreal.  
  
"He's not to my tastes," is all she says as she heads for a high-end boutique. She smirks at him over her shoulder. "Should I expect you in my dressing room again?"

 

"Only so long as you continue to not ask me my opinions on your outfits," he says, returning the smirk with one of his own. He briefly eyes the salon near the boutique, which offers spray-tans of a variety of colors. That would be an excellent disguise. He'll consider it as he follows.  
  
He finds absolutely no interest in anything here, and immediately pulls out his phone in order to check the times on the tickets and the weather in Vienna.

 

The boutique's employees see exactly what they expect. The bored significant other (the staff regularly saw everything from wives to girlfriends to mistresses, and prided themselves on their discretion, which was utterly _in_ discreet as far as Irene was concerned), the confident woman. They offer Sherlock a seat, would he like a refreshment, some bottled water perhaps, while a pair of them swooped on Irene with practiced ease.  
  
She allows them to hover, but despite their chatter, there is a briskness to her purchases, as if she knows exactly what she wants, and aims to get exactly that and nothing more.  
  
But, she doesn't wear any of it out, instead insisting the staff package it all. As she waits for them to comply, she eyes him. "Worried?"

 

"Not about the flight, no," he says. "And the weather looks rainy in Vienna, which will mean fewer tourists."  
  
He takes a drink of the bottled water. His hangover has been spent from his adrenaline earlier, but he's still somewhat dehydrated. And, although he's loathe to admit it, he _is_ worried. Worried they'll turn around and Moran will put a gun to their heads.  
  
"Another shop down for suits," he says. "And bags. For luggage."

 

"And the salon, if your suggestion is to be noted."

She frowns at the mention of luggage, nearly protesting. She dislikes the idea of being weighed down by luggage, but any disguise as a pair of travelers would require them to have luggage. A second thought, and she nods.

Irene takes a moment to consider the sum of the disguise. New, expensive luggage, high end clothes, suits. They would be obviously well-to-do, and money bought a certain amount of privacy. Still, it wasn't the end all and be all of the disguise.

"Inherited wealth, entrepreneurs, or politician?"

 

It doesn't matter for him, he wants to say. It's _her_ who needs the disguise. She needs to be the timid one, the one so unlike Irene Adler. At least for the duration of this ride.  
  
"Politician with the quiet wife?" he suggests. "A trophy wife expected to be quiet."  
  
He casts a glance back at the salon. "Something temporary. I think for Vienna, we should be ourselves. For once."  
  
The thought of someone recognizing them in such a place doesn't cross his mind.

 

"If I didn't know better, I'd say you were looking to live a fantasy."  
  
She gives him a second look; something about his easy agreement, without a scoff or a smart remark about disguises and self portraits, catches her attention. But while she knows what he likes, while she thinks she can figure him out, there is painfully little to work with at the moment, just that single lack of answer.  
  
Still, she keeps that in mind. "Vienna's closer to London than Toronto. Not afraid of someone seeing ghosts?"

 

"If you think my fantasy is having you suddenly becoming Molly Hooper, I'm afraid you're extremely mistaken," he replies, instantly.  
  
The fantasy would be a world where the two of them could be themselves again without having to hide. Something he should, really, save for Moscow. Save for their goodbyes. But he doesn't want it to be over, not really. If he can work out a way to make it longer---  
  
Sentiment.  
  
"Are you?" he asks, diverting the question.

 

"At this point, I'd say it's rather inconsequential whether or not the world believes Irene Adler is dead, wouldn't you?"  
  
She stops, scrutinizing the window display of a store that sold high end suits. Her own words remind her that perhaps the need for the rush, the speed and secrecy, was now over, with both Mycroft Holmes and Sebastian Moran fully aware of just how very much alive they both were. That, disguise or not, perhaps their journey to Moscow did not need to be driven quite so much by speed and secrecy, though staying ahead of the elder Holmes would still have to be a concern.  
  
Could they even manage it, a leisurely trip. She doesn't think so, it's too unlike them, too sentimental, too _normal_.  
  
But the appeal remains.  
  
Still, she murmurs, glancing up at his reflection in the glass of the window display with a wicked gleam in her eyes, "I know your fantasy isn't Miss Hooper. It's making _me_ submit."

 

"It could be an interesting experiment," he decides. It would only be worth it if that defiant gleam remained in her eyes, if she submitted despite the gleam. He wouldn't want her timid, that wouldn't be worth it, not even remotely.  
  
He looks away, back to the entrance to the mall. No sign of Moran. No one.  
  
"Irene Adler still has many enemies," he says. "And her protection isn't completely secure yet."

 

She smirks at his answer, her gaze following his eyes, glancing over to the shopping mall's entrance. Families, tourists. Utterly predictable. Unless he was expecting something...  
  
"Irene Adler died because she relied solely on other people's protection," she reminds him, the faintest edge in her voice. "I'm not making that mistake again."

 

He nods, curtly. "Of course."  
  
He walks past her, towards the shop for luggage. His face is blank, but inside he feels a confusing battle to admit sentiment and fault, or to attempt to keep it hidden. The latter is, of course, the more appealing scenario.

 

She lets him outpace her for a few steps, taking the moment to study him, to consider the set of his shoulders, the minute tension that hints at confusion despite his blank, stoic expression. She does not expect anything from him for her comment; as far as she was concerned, it was the simple truth. The fact that he had come to Karachi in the first place had told her everything she needed to know about his sentiment and any regret he might have felt. It was, in her mind, a reminder strictly to herself.  
  
The salespeople at the luggage shop perk up, visibly attentive, as they near, and Irene nods towards a matched set of luggage, a small and professional suitcase with an attached hanging bag. "Politician, used to traveling light but looking put together. Well made, discreet. No one would look twice."  
  
For the dutiful trophy wife though, she'd need something flashier.

 

He nods, and gestures to a set of extremely simple red leather bags. Expensive, with gold accents and a velvet interior.  
  
"And for her. Flashy, but not the sort of flashy that he'd disapprove of, just the right touch of luxury."

 

She smiles and gives the sales staff an imperious nod, gesturing at both sets. She might allow herself to play demure, but for the moment she remained utterly, commandingly herself.  
  
"Was that a conscious or unconscious choice to match my lipstick?"

 

He finds himself smirking, just a little.  
  
"Is that the same shade?" he says. "I hadn't noticed."  
  
Of course he had.  
  
He lets his hand brush against hers as he turns to leave the store. He does, after all, have suits to buy.

 

She laughs, ignoring the lingering warmth of his hand against hers as he heads for the door of the store while she finishes the purchases, instructing one particularly eager to please man to pack most of her purchases into the red bags and to wait with both sets of luggage by the car once a second set of purchases had been delivered to be packed in the other set of bags.  
  
When they accept her directions, Irene leaves the store herself, pausing a moment. Instead of following him, she instead turns to the salon he'd eyed earlier, a smirk on her lips.  
  
A text arrives shortly at his mobile.  
  
`Try not requiring a rescue anytime soon.`

 

He's having a set of trousers fitted when the text comes. He smirks, eyes turning briefly towards the door of the shop. Domestic, that's what they are. Teasing, but still very comfortable with themselves.  
  
He did a study once on the destruction of domestic relationships. He tried to share it with John, but it only made John annoyed and he left rather than staying in for tea. If the Woman and Sherlock didn't have so visible an end to their holiday, how long would it take for this to fall apart?  
  
Another text dings on his phone. He reads it and deletes it instantly.  
  
"Yes," he says to the tailor. "It'll be fine. Two colors, same style."

 

The woman waiting at the salon, browsing idly through some vapid women's magazine, is the very polar opposite of Irene Adler. Her hair is shorter, in perfect, honey-blonde ringlets that end just below her shoulders, and her lips are a light, dewy pink, perfectly offsetting pale skin and the knee length dress she wears, its skirt full and feminine.  
  
Even her eyes are different, a deep emerald green peering up from beneath long, curling lashes.  
  
She does, however, wear flats.

 

He steps over to her in his new suit. His hair is combed differently, his dark curls falling more across his forehead. She is unbelievably different, someone utterly new to look at, and not at all herself.  
  
He finds himself smiling at the transformation. She will be unrecognizable.  
  
"Tell me there's an American accent to go with this look," he says.

 

"The French expatriate Dutch diplomat with an American wife?" she asks, her accent deliberately vague, deliberately European, continental but without an obvious origin. She looks up at him through the long lashes, her mouth quirking into a smile as she rises from the chair.  
  
"Rather complicated, wouldn't you say?"

 

"You can't make these things up," he replies, his own accent suddenly thickly French, as though English were the third language he learned. He reaches out to touch one of the blonde ringlets.  
  
"It's a good choice," he says. "Not Molly at all."

 

She's impressed by the way he's layered his accents, not that she'd tell him, but she expects he's figured it out already. Perhaps by the tug at the corner of her mouth that she does not hide, or some other tell he's deduced in the last few months of their renewed acquaintance. The blonde ringlet he touches is a perfect colour, layered, but at a closer examination, it is obviously a wig. High quality, but a wig nonetheless. It was, after all, the only way to be utterly unlike herself until Vienna.  
  
"There are some things even I can't pull off," she answers. Hints of American vowels peep through her words, as if she's trying desperately to minimize the accent but only half successful. She takes the keys out of her pocket and offers them to him. "You'll drive then?"

 

The texture tells him immediately that it's a wig, though he's internally furious at himself for not being able to spot it from across the room. The effortless way she adds character to her vocal intonations makes him want to have her right here in the salon.  
  
Again, he can only wonder if there's something wrong with them.  
  
He settles for touching her hand as he curls his fingers around the keys.  
  
"I imagine I should," he says.

 

Her manner is mild and accepting, demure, even though her fingers remain just a few seconds too long on the keys before letting go. The best disguises were, after all, self-portraits, and this one in particular was one that she did not wear well despite her experiences at intimate observation of it.

 

At some point, the only thing that will keep her wearing it is a desire to prove to him that she can.

But she eventually lets go, instead taking his arm. "Don't think I'm happy about that," she tells him under her breath.

 

"I don't," he says, his smirk confident enough that it remains in character. "I imagine very little of this disguise will be pleasant for you."  
  
For him, however, it would be unbelievably amusing. And, though he is loathe to admit it, nerve-wracking. She has to play the part perfectly. No flaws. No tells. No self-portraits in her disguise.  
  
She can, he tells himself. She is, perhaps, the only person who could. Besides himself, of course.

 

She gives him another look from beneath lowered lashes, but the glint in her eyes remain albeit muted by the vibrant emerald green. She falls into step with him, taking care that her stride is a half step behind, not matching his but an almost undetectable beat slower. Following, rather than either leading or on pace.  
  
Still, his smirk drives her to keep the disguise perfect, to not slip even the slightest even if her words themselves are uncharacteristic of the disguise. The quiet whisper, the head inclined towards him, that is flawless. "Is that why you were so eager to accept it."

 

"Hardly," he replies, voice confident, mildly dominating. "I think it will be the most perfect way to remain unlike ourselves. Our rapport is---"  
  
Mycroft would call it _obvious_. John would probably call it _domestic_. Sherlock doesn't have a word to call it, though the words that come to mind follow suit. They have the relationship of two people who have grown to know each other, but are still challenged. The challenge is what makes it enjoyable. Her complete submission would be dull.  
  
"---Recognizable."

 

Moran's forgettable sedan is exactly where they'd left it, and the man from the luggage shop is exactly where she'd instructed he be, waiting patiently by the side of the car with the two sets of new luggage. He looks straight at Irene, but there is no recognition in his face; she is clearly not the woman who had directed him and the luggage here.  
  
But instead of heading for the car, Irene's hand tightens on Sherlock's arm fractionally as she spots a jewelry store several stops down. "We're missing a piece of the puzzle," she says, her voice still low, her eyes flickering over the individuals they walked past but never making more than momentary eye contact. "No politician with a trophy bride would go without a wedding band."

 

"Ah, of course," he says. "And a piece of jewelry for you that's more showy than it is comfortable. Something to be cleaned professionally before every public appearance." Nothing at all sentimental, like the ring that has made its way throughout their entire journey. A stolen, dangerous ring that seems to fit the Woman perfectly.  
  
He loathes jewelry shopping, apart from watches. All the same, this is important. Essential, really. And something that would be noticed. He steps ahead, expecting her to allow him the lead as he moves to the jewelry store.

 

The mention of her own necessary disguise brings to Irene's mind the ring still on her right hand, its weight now familiar, almost as if it were already a part of her, and a protest, unbidden and unexpected, rises to her lips. She catches it and swallows it back, falling behind as he takes the lead into the store.  
  
She _likes_ the amethyst and diamond ring on her finger, prefers it, but he is right, that despite its obvious quality and wealth, it does not fit into the fiction they are spinning, will not play the part they need it to. Still, she does not tuck it away.  
  
"You are enjoying yourself far too much," she mutters as she follows, knowing if he catches the words, he'll catch the promised retribution behind them.

 

"No such thing as too much," he replies, immediately. She doesn't move to remove the ring from her right hand, and he doesn't tell her she should. It _could_ fit with their fiction---except it doesn't, and he's simply looking for a reason for it to stay, much in the same way that he's looking for a reason to extend their holiday.  
  
His phone goes off. He ignores it in favor of holding the door for her.

 

She _giggles_ , as if he's said something amusing and yet vaguely condescending, and her laughter is expected. But her eyes linger as she steps through the door, wondering at the noise of the mobile in his pocket.  
  
Odd, how she's brushed past him into rooms countless times by now but there is a subtle difference in it this time, a set of the shoulders, a fraction of an inch given up in the way she holds her head. Deference rather than dominance, little minor details that chafe at her but which are for the moment necessary with this disguise.  
  
An older man, heavyset and having suffered a broken ankle in the last year and a half, approaches, his eyes sweeping over them and lighting up with delight at the commission he's certain will follow. "What can I help you with today, Miss?"  
  
Irene nods towards Sherlock, the vaguely Continental accent with its hint of unsuccessfully hidden American back on her tongue. "I think he already has something in mind."

 

He looks over the rings. Some of them are significantly more the Woman's style, but it isn't going to be about _her_ with this politician. It's all about him. Something flashy. Something he'd feel pleased about, that would make him look like a good husband.  
  
He points at a diamond ring, two karats in a yellow gold setting. "That, and matching wedding band," he says. He points to an extremely simple gold band for himself.

 

The ring he chooses is unlike anything she'd have chosen for herself, large and flashy and cumbersome without the elegance she prefers. It is meant to impress, meant to mark and burden its wearer, which is utterly in keeping with the personas they are donning. The salesman's eyes widen a little, and Irene thinks she can practically see him drool at the commission.  
  
He gestures for her hand, and she gives it, letting him fiddle with the fitting for a moment before he is satisfied and gestures to Sherlock for his sizing. Irene tries to ignore the gleam of the simple gold band on the counter, ignores the knowledge of how easily they anticipate each other now, how well they work together.  
  
Sentimental idiocy. This was simply a part of the disguise. Nothing more.  
  
Still, she makes the appropriate noises when the salesman complimented the choices, and murmurs at Sherlock, "You shouldn't have, darling."

 

He reaches his free hand over to take hers, to turn her hand and examine the sparkle of the diamond. It's not an abusive grip, but a dominating one. He has a feeling he would deeply dislike the politician he's playing. He reminds himself of his old schoolmate Sebastian.  
  
"Hm. It will do for now," he says in his own layered accent. He looks over at his own hand as the salesman fits his wedding band.

 

Irene thinks back to the novelist's wife, how the woman's tells had given away how she craved her husband's approval, how her expression would fall at the slightest word. It isn't a thought that comes to her naturally, to _need_ that approval so viscerally, but she schools her expression to it, to delight as he examines the ring on her hand, to a crestfallen instant at his answer, and back to a practiced smile.  
  
It is, if nothing else, challenging.  
  
The salesman fiddles, making noise under his breath as he tries to judge whether he can make a few more hundred in commission by suggesting an upsale or engraving. Irene leans against Sherlock, as if to get a closer look at the process, the quiet, agreeable trophy wife taking an interest.  
  
"It suits you."

 

"It'll be perfect," he agrees.  
  
He thinks of Sebastian's girlfriends back in university. How they wanted his approval, but their existence was just a way to prove his masculinity. This is what Sherlock's politician will be like. It's very unlike how he feels about the Woman.  
  
It's hardly challenging. Simply more dull. Watching her at work is like watching a concert, however. An actress at work.  
  
"We need to make our train," he reminds her.

 

"Of course."  
  
She gives the salesman instructions to bill the hotel room in which Moran is staying. That is, of course, perfectly in character. The politician who thinks himself too important to involve himself in the little things of life, his eager-to-please wife who steps in in hopes of winning approval that he does not even see.  
  
The salesman nods, and turns away. Irene had no doubt he'd add extra to the bill and pocket the difference. But that was something Moran could deal with. It'd keep him busy, keep him thinking, trying to sort out a mess he was nowhere near qualified enough to fix on his own.  
  
As they exit the jewelry store, her hand finds its way to his elbow again, the amethyst ring still winking on her right hand, now seemingly less conspicuous compared to the one on her left hand. "We wouldn't want to miss our train."

 

No, they wouldn't. Too much riding on this one train ride. It might be safer to ignore it, to miss it and move on.  
  
He nods, curtly. Politely.  
  
"Just tell me that when we're in private you'll be yourself," he says, even though his tone is in character, his words are far from it.

 

Another light, giggling laugh, as if she is responding to some flattering inconsequential compliment. Her body language remains unchanged, precisely exactly what she is playing to be, but there is steel in her voice, in the low murmur meant only for his ear, that anyone watching would think was just a blushing rejoinder at the compliment.  
  
"You couldn't stop me from it even if you tried."

 

"Good," he says, his own voice deeply pleased with himself and her reaction.  
  
He heads them in the direction of the car, and he gestures to the boot for the luggage salesman, and steps over to open the Woman's door.  
  
"Rental," he informs the salesman. "You understand."

 

She slips into the passenger seat with no small relief, watching in the rear-view mirror as the salesman loads the luggage into the car. A part of her is already chafing at the disguise, and the prospect of discarding it until they reached the train station was appealing.  
  
"You're being careful," she finally remarks when the luggage salesman is done and sent on his way.

 

"Am I?" he says, attempting to be somewhat coy. "Considering we just charged an extremely irritated assassin a quarter of a million pounds in jewelry and luggage, I don't think _careful_ plays into it."  
  
He flexes his fingers, attempting to adjust to the feel of a heavy band there. Discomfort is something he is very adept at disguising, but he imagines the Woman can see it on his face. Concern over their disguises, more so than usual. Care has to be taken for the next twelve hours. Then, well, care will be taken, only in a much different way.  
  
He puts the car into reverse the moment the salesman steps out of the way.

 

He plays at deflecting by ignorance, but she doesn't believe it for an instant. Not in the way he flexes his fingers, in the precision with which each piece of the disguise is being laid, from her hair colour to the luggage, and even in the way he did not scoff at her suggestion of such an unlikely persona.  
  
He pulls the car out of the parking lot and back to the road, to the train station in question, and Irene studies his profile, as if there is something in his expression, in the set of his jaw, that would be the key to unraveling the mystery.  
  
It reminds her that she shouldn't trust him, that despite the encounter with Moran, he doesn't trust her, that they have _history_. That despite the names on their false passports, despite the promise of Moscow and Vienna, that they are too much themselves to really be trusted.  
  
"We've had the same extremely irritated assassin on our trail in far more desperate circumstances," she retorts. "And you weren't _careful_ then." Not in the same way he is now.

 

"He didn't have you in his sights, then," he says, immediately. It sounds too much like he's worried about her. He considers rephrasing his statement, but decides the change would be too obvious. He lets it sit as he drives.  
  
He takes a breath. "I made an error in judgment last week," he says. "It may affect us soon."  
  
May meaning _will_.


	9. An Error in Judgment

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Having bested Sebastian Moran's attempt at kidnapping and bargaining at Niagara Falls, Irene Adler and Sherlock Holmes continue to make their way across Canada to evade Mycroft Holmes. But a confession from Sherlock reveals sentiment far deeper than either would admit, and could prove deadly for Irene.

There is absolute silence from Irene for a minute, perhaps longer, in the wake of his statement. Whether it is from the fact that he's admitting to being _wrong_ about something, or the fact that he's saying anything at all, it is hard to say. She is mentally retracing her steps, trying to find what clue she'd missed in the past few days, since Montreal.  
  
She considers, momentarily, whether there was still time to find an airport near the train station.  
  
Her voice is carefully neutral when she does answer, her expression empty of any real emotion as she gives him the barest of glances. "And what does this 'error in judgment' entail, Mr. Holmes?"

 

"Revenge," he replies, simply. He gives a slight shrug. "Of a sort."  
  
He doesn't enjoy admitting an error in judgment, and her silence makes it even more difficult to pinpoint where he should lead the conversation. She's probably considering running. Or betraying him. All of which, he supposes, are what he'd do in the exact same situation.

 

Her lips thin at his answer and, despite the soft, dewy makeup the politician's wife favours, there is steel in the expression, determination in the set of her jaw and a hardness like glass in her eyes.   
  
The fact that she doesn't immediately demand he stop the car should say something. Should mean something. But she isn't certain she won't still. She glances out the passenger side window. When was the last time she'd seen a mile marker? Had paid attention to one?  
  
"The pool of individuals you'd feel the need or have the ability to take revenge against is rather small at the moment," she says. "Three I can think of, in fact. And I expect it isn't Mr. Holmes the elder."

 

"Larger than you'd expect," he says. "Because I have no interest in obtaining revenge on Moran."  
  
The third, though. He's not certain who she's referring to.

 

There is a piece of the puzzle she is missing here, a key that would make everything fall obviously into place. Because it wouldn't make sense for him to tell her _now_ if she had been the intended target despite their reminded mistrust and their _history_.  
  
Her voice remains flat, emotionless. "Then perhaps you should enlighten me."

 

He turns a corner, pulling them closer to the train station, but not close enough that he can simply ignore the question until they have to get out. It's aggravating.  
  
He lowers the window and takes out a cigarette.  
  
"I don't think our politician would be a smoker, do you?"

 

He doesn't answer, and she considers again the possibility that he has learned too well from her, that he tells her his plan from some sense of _anticipation_. She removes her mobile from her purse, turns it around in her hand.  
  
"Does our politician expect to be a happy widower by the end of the trip?"

 

He looks at her, his expression deeply annoyed.  
  
"Yes, that's why our politician decided to tell his lovely wife about the situation, ask her to become as different from herself as possible, and made plans for an extended holiday with her."  
  
He lights the cigarette.  
  
"I couldn't let you die, Woman, much less kill you."

 

There are not many times Irene finds herself utterly surprised. Even fewer where she lets that surprise show. This is, however, one of those rare times in which both are true. She does not remark on how blurred he has made the line between themselves and their disguises. For the moment, she doesn't have the words for even that.  
  
She swallows back the sudden warmth his irritable answer provokes, and manages tartly, "And here I thought the little things you'd consider such irritations would have driven you to at least a split second of contemplating murder."  
  
She smiles, nonetheless.

 

He shrugs. "It's only momentary. Never as fully fleshed-out as my thoughts of killing John Watson in his most irritating, mind."  
  
The surprise on her face is equal parts satisfying and utterly terrifying. The vulnerability he's allowing himself with her, even after the knowledge that he simply can't trust her, he's still---  
  
It's dangerous. She's dangerous. A dangerous disadvantage. It's far too late to back away, however. Were this surgery, the incisions she's made into his heart are already detrimental enough, they might as well complete them.  
  
His voice gets somewhat quiet. "Why would you think---this disguise would mean I want---?"

 

Seconds tick by and she counts distance in the lampposts they pass. She says nothing for a long moment, staring out the window.  
  
"Because you don't love me, Mr. Holmes. And I won't love you," she answers, equally quiet. A soft laugh, as if she cannot stand the sentimentality in her own words. "We have a history of betraying each other."  
  
And a more recent history of saving each other, but she doesn't say that.

 

There is a definite difference between the _don't_ and the _won't_ that he notices but does not completely understand. This is the way between them. Things that are almost but not quite understood, feelings that are almost but not completely shared.  
  
He flicks his cigarette out of the window and finds himself saying something to her that he had said once to Mycroft so very long ago.  
  
"Do you ever wonder if there's something wrong with us?"

 

The subtleties do not escape her. He doesn't, because he believes himself incapable of emotion to that degree. She won't, because she has once and will not make that mistake again.   
  
But they are here and disguise or not there is something tying them together even more firmly than the jewelry on their fingers. Perhaps the difference is merely delusion.  
  
She considers the question, examines each word in and of itself, as a whole. "Does it change anything, even if there is?"

 

She answers the question far more than Mycroft ever would.  
  
"I suppose it doesn't," he says, turning into the car park of the train station. He is deeply irritated by how _melancholy_ his voice sounds. Vulnerable. Sentiment. Idiotic.

 

In a few minutes, she'll have to don the disguise of the politician's wife again. Have to be irritatingly unlike herself until she knows for certain what he's done, what his error in judgment would entail.   
  
"Good. Being ordinary would be dreadfully dull."

 

"We'd be very bored of each other very quickly, I imagine," he replies.  
  
He reaches out to take her hand, the one that still adorns the amethyst ring. Rather than remove it, he simply holds her hand for a moment, as though judging the action. Allowing it.  
  
If he could love her, he'd do it. Right now. In this moment.

 

There is a part of her that is now always aware of where his hand rests when they touch, that makes note of the touch of his fingers against the pulse point in her wrist, that takes note of whatever chemistry may betray her, and the way he takes her hand is no exception.  
  
But he simply holds her hand, and there is a deliberateness to the action that doesn't seem to be about judging chemical betrayal. Still, it is not a gesture she lets linger, lest it _become_ chemical betrayal, and she withdraws her hand from his.  
  
"Should I remind you that leaving me ignorant of what your 'error in judgment' entails is going to be worse than letting me know what to expect?"

 

"I can't anticipate if you'll be cross or approving," he says, his face overtly apprehensive, the way he acts when he doesn't want John to shout at him.

 

The faintest hint of a smile. "And what do you anticipate the reaction would be if you refuse to tell me?"

 

"You don't find out anything," he says "I kill the person I need to kill."  
  
A pause.  
  
"Would prefer to kill."

 

The slip doesn't go unnoticed, though it does, for the moment, go unremarked upon.  
  
Her eyes narrow. "And I don't play the demure politician's wife."

 

He turns to look at her. "You should. You'll be safer."  
  
He, of course, can't tell her what to do. He's not her master, no matter how much of a dominating politician he plays.

 

She looks pointedly at him, crossing her arms in front of her. "And you should tell me what you have up your sleeve," she answers.  
  
She nods towards a parking space ahead, currently being vacated by a pair of geriatrics, each woman carefully loading her suitcase into the boot of the car. "Or you could wait until I've figured it out, and then you have nothing to bargain with."  
  
It won't take long, after all. She's already beginning to fit the pieces together. Not Moran, not Mycroft Holmes. _Safer._ Someone whom he expected would know her, then, someone who would not have already been alerted to her current less-than-deceased state despite both Mycroft and Moran's new knowledge.

 

"Should I?" he asks, raising an eyebrow.  
  
No. He sighs. "Simply keep things quiet, Woman. It will keep you safer from----them."

 

_Safer_. That word again.  
  
"Not your brother. He would see through your disguise and make the proper guesses. Moran is only just now regaining consciousness and cursing your name and mine," she says instead, every word a challenge, proving her earlier warning.  
  
"But someone else who had something to gain from my death, otherwise you wouldn't be quite so adamant on safety."  
  
Another glance at him. "Several someones."

 

"And mine as well, though they're less likely to recognize me."  
  
His text messages go off again and he pulls out his mobile, finally glancing at them. He gives a nod before tucking it away in his pocket.  
  
"Ready?" he asks.

 

She looks pointedly at his mobile, then back at him. Someone who knew them both then, though he to a lesser degree than herself. That narrowed the pool down a little. Not one of Moriarty's henchmen, the killers after his friends, because they would know _him_ far better. Someone who would recognize her on sight then.  
  
The band of militants in Karachi were dead, of that she was certain. And they were the only ones who fit the profile she'd build so far. She considers the rest of her journey. From London to Algeria to Saudi Arabia to Pakistan...  
  
His question interrupts her, and she gives him a cool, haughty look. Every inch Irene Adler, every centimeter of her the Woman despite the blonde hair and pale makeup.  
  
"Are you asking Irene Adler or the politician's wife?"

 

" _You_ ," he replies.  
  
He pauses, looking her over. She is not the politician's wife, her eyes give that away.  
  
"Woman."

 

She holds his gaze. "Consider it an even trade, Mr. Holmes. I'll wear the disguise you want, and you give me the information I want," she answers.   
  
A smirk tugs at her lips as her hand reaches for the latch to open the car's door. "Or I figure it out in the next hour and you have no certainty that I'll stay out of the way of whoever it is you're so determined to mark for death."

 

He reaches out to grab her arm.  
  
"You won't want to get on the train," he says, firmly. "In your place, I wouldn't either."

 

Her free hand closes on his wrist, the diamond ring on her left hand winking in the light. "You're supposed to _play_ the domineering husband," she reminds him. "Not be the overprotective one."

 

He looks down at her hand on his, and realizes she can tell his pulse is elevated, ever so slightly. Nerves, which is downright annoying, really. He's worried for her.  
  
With his other hand, he pulls out his mobile. He offers it to her. It, along with the texts he's been sending to Navid Al-Baker. He never directly addresses the former Al-Qaeda member turned-Moriarty's-assassin by name, but he imagines the taunting messages calling him out will explain enough.  
  
"Do you need me to tell you the pass code?"

 

Elevated pulse could be a number of things, but in combination with the coolness of his skin beneath her fingertips, she realizes it is nervousness. Worry. And as much as she is irritated by his continued attempts to evade, she hesitates a moment before taking the offered phone, because his concern, his worry is _real_ , because he allows her to see it, and she is suddenly not certain she wants to know what would make his behaviour so blatant.  
  
But he challenges, and she cannot let him win. She takes the phone, her eyes locked on his, and glances at the 4 digit pass code requested.   
  
She doesn't hesitate, and punches in a string of characters.  
  
`221B`  
  
The phone unlocks, and she holds his gaze for another moment before beginning to scan through his texts.

 

It clearly started almost immediately after the Woman's death, where Sherlock all but smacked the wasp's nest, calling out the men who went to kill the Woman in Karachi. Calling them out so he could kill them.  
  
Revenge, of a sort.  
  
"Very good," he says, regarding her deduction of his password. "Though hardly difficult."

 

"No, but you goaded me all the same."  
  
She doesn't look up at him, her eyes moving quickly as she scans each text, each response more and more agitated. She presses her lips together into a thin tense line when she reads the last few and flips the phone shut.   
  
Her expression is blank, not from deliberately trying to keep her thoughts from him, but from the simple fact that she does not know what (if anything) to feel about the revelation.   
  
Memories sour with old fear gnaw at the back of her mind and she forces them down, forces herself to square her shoulders even as she slips the disguise of the politician's wife back on like a coat.  
  
"You wouldn't want to miss our train."

 

He extends his hand for the phone, demanding in his silence as the politician's persona comes back on. Even so, his look is apologetic.  
  
"I'm going to kill them," he replies, voice even and thick with a layered accent.

 

The smallest smile tugs at the corner of her mouth, though she does not let it grow as she hands him back the phone with the lightest touch of her fingertips against his. The meaning of his words are clear despite the persona, and the prospect of continuing the conversation without breaking character is challenging.  
  
Her own accent is slightly different, more of the American peeking through the affected Continental at the moment. As if she is more relaxed, momentarily out of the scrutiny of the public eye. She opens her car door and shakes her head. "You keep saying that and the press will think you mean it one of these days," she says as a mother tries to herd three boys and a trail of rolling suitcases along towards the train. "Desperately dangerous for reelection if you're caught on camera."

 

"The public can take it as they want," he says, opening his own door. "I don't actually care, so long as they listen to what I say."  
  
This persona is unendingly dull, despite how entertaining it is to watch the Woman as her role. He moves to the boot of the car, the dutiful husband despite the domineering and self-important stature.  
  
"Or would you simply prefer I let them be?" he asks.

 

The laugh is hers, despite the light touch of the politician's wife. There is something utterly true in his statement, something that is utterly Sherlock Holmes despite the politician's disguise. "If I had wanted a quiet retiring life with people left as they were, I'd hardly have married you," she teases, letting him unload the pair of bright red leather cases for her. The words are comfortable, affectionate, but with a touch of weariness to them, the affectionate if somewhat put upon political wife.  
  
"I just want to know how much press I should expect, and whether I should keep you away from heavy objects or simply duck out of the way."

 

"My initial anger is gone," he says. "I believe I possess the self-control to be more subtle."  
  
This is, he believes, untrue. He doesn't know the full extent of what they did to the Woman before what was to be her execution, but he could take in ideas from her gaunt face, the hollowness under her eyes, and the way the muscles in her neck tightened when she saw his texts. And the Woman is----she's not _his_ , not really. But she is something precious, and harming her is the extent of damaging a priceless artifact in the world. He simply cannot stand for it. It was to be his revenge when he couldn't save her. Now, it is simply tidying up something he should have a long time ago.

 

She wonders if he believes his own words are true, when the texts on his phone, his 'error in judgment,' pointed so clearly otherwise. Something like bone-deep satisfaction wars with the tension and tightly repressed fear that she is trying to ignore, to keep out of every line of her body and voice.   
  
Her words hover on the edge of her disguise, balanced right at the border between appropriate and not. She has no doubt he'll read into it more than the politician's wife chiding with good humour as she rolls her luggage behind her, the multi-layered accent growing comfortable on her tongue. "I hope so, I'd hate to end up with blood on my dress."

 

They're still in Canada. He's not about to risk changing his language to French as though others couldn't understand him. He still keeps his words ambiguous, even as he changes his language.  
  
" _I'm not about to put you in any danger, darling,_ " he says. " _No matter what._ "

 

She answers in English, because he is once again perilously close to blurring the lines between their disguises and themselves, and she refuses to slip. The fiction was dangerous, _domestic_ and somehow carrying with it a permanence that is utterly unlike their temporary holiday.  
  
And this _was_ temporary. Would be even if they met again.  
  
She gives him a sidelong look as the ticket taker in the kiosk gestures to them to hurry forward. Despite her efforts, there is a teasing note to her words that aren't purely the politician's wife's. "You're being romantic without the cameras rolling. Haven't you already gotten your way?"

 

"I always get my way," he replies, mostly because this is extremely untrue when it comes to her specifically.  
  
He pulls out his wallet to pay for the tickets, already pre-ordered via a phone that would break the politician's disguise if he retrieved it. With that small bit done, they are directed past the queue and towards the first class section. This is, of course, where the men Sherlock wants to be rid of are. They're far too self-important for anything but.  
  
She looks nothing like herself, he reminds himself. Blonde hair, pale makeup, a demure demeanor. Nothing like the proud Woman in Karachi. And they barely saw him at all.

 

The politician's wife knows it is true, and says nothing in response. Irene Adler knows it is _un_ true and says nothing in response. In both cases, his answer lingers, and she follows him through the queue and towards the first class section.   
  
The crowd begins to grow, not an oppressive crowd, but there are enough people around that Irene wishes she could watch them all, but the blonde politician's wife would not be so anxious. She forces herself to not think about Karachi, to not think about her flight through Algeria or Saudi Arabia, or the feel of desert sand beneath her feet as she runs.  
  
Her expression remains smooth and she forces herself to watch the train station through her lashes as she steps closer to Sherlock, slipping her hand around his arm. It's what the politician's wife would do, she tells herself, to show them as a cohesive unit in public. It would be second nature, and certainly not indicative of any irrational fear Irene Adler cannot shake.

 

Her hand goes around his arm, and he reminds himself that this sort of display of affection suits them. It would also be an excellent cover for the Woman, as Irene Adler is not the sort to be subtle. Every time they would go so far as to hold hands, it would feel unusual and exciting for its novelty.  
  
He walks confidently, though he watches around the station, observing for signs of the terrorists, of the _assassins_ who took their time to catch the Woman, to make a demonstration out of her. He imagines that before killing them he should thank them for their act, for their desire to videotape it all to send to Jim, as it gave Sherlock enough time to step in and save her.  
  
It is as they step towards the train with their luggage that he sees them. A group of four, one of which is on his mobile. Dressed in dark suits, Ray-Ban sunglasses up. They haven't seen the Woman or Sherlock, or if they have, they haven't noticed them.

 

There's a sudden tightening tension in his arm beneath her hand, and Irene has to resist the urge to turn her head, to follow his gaze. She's certain he's seen the man he'd been baiting. Navid Al-Baker. She tries to recall having heard the name before, having dealt with, demanded a meeting with, the man. But even her considerable memory comes up blank.   
  
He isn't one she's had dealings with, but he seemed to have been instrumental in her capture in Karachi. Her grip tightens on his arm unconsciously, but upon realizing it, she forces herself to relinquish her grip, transferring it instead to the luggage she is pulling along. She despises the sour fear that continues to claw its way up from where she has refused to acknowledge it, but it is too dangerous to draw the dominatrix's cold carelessness around herself as armour.  
  
" _Let's not let this turn into another London, darling_." Innocuous enough, to a French speaking bystander. He'd know better.

 

" _I'm not the sort to miss from twenty feet_ ," Sherlock replies, voice calm. It could be considered something else from a French-speaking bystander, but he realizes he's being careless. Carelessness is not something he should be toying with considering how unlikely it is that _he_ will be spotted. The Woman's life is the one on the line if something goes wrong.  
  
He presses his hand to his side. He has no gun, he remembers. All plans to pack it went by the wayside when Moran appeared. No matter. There are other options. The four men are probably armed, it wouldn't be too difficult to remove their weapons, use it against them.

 

She answers his comment with a laugh, light and inconsequential. The sort of laugh that is easily recognizable as inconsequential, that made a listener disregard the sentiment that led to it as superfluous. She knows what he means, and she feels him shift again, his free hand reaching for... there were only so many things that could be reached for the way he moves, and Irene's eyes flick sharply over him.  
  
Her hand tightens on his arm again, as she relinquishes her luggage to an attendant along with the train tickets. She dislikes letting their things out of her sight but there is a certain blasé attitude her disguise demands, and she is not going to slip, not at the moment.  
  
"I remember," she answers, slipping back to English. Out of the corner of her eye, she catches sight of the four he'd seen earlier, their eyes hidden behind expensive sunglasses. She doesn't recognize any of them at a glance, but it is painfully easy for her to read their body language, to note that at least one of them is armed, and the set of his shoulders told Irene far more about what he liked than she cared to know at the moment. "Am I going to regret letting you book our seats as a surprise?"

 

This disguise is more difficult for him than he'd originally considered. There are worries involved he wasn't prepared for, primarily for the Woman. He hates these worries, hates that he can see them, that he can recognize how much he cares. She has swiftly become his blind spot, his weakness. He wants to protect her. He hasn't wanted to protect someone before---apart from John Watson, and even then he only wanted to protect his life. John's sanity was his own business.  
  
"Hopefully you don't already, darling," he replies, turning to look at her. Even now, she is difficult to read. He attempts to empathize with her emotions, but finds that too tiring and opts, instead, for simply moving forward onto the train, her hand on his arm.  
  
He lets out a disappointed sigh at the first class cabins. Lush carpeting, large windows, velvet seating, dark curtains for privacy. "I can only hope the flight over is less base."

 

It was, perhaps, ironic, that for her entire life before her death in Karachi, she had chased protection through secrets and blackmail. But now, the idea of being protected, especially by Sherlock Holmes of all people, was no longer appealing. Making her way in the world, making her own protection, kept her safe.  
  
So it is perhaps for the best that her own thoughts are more preoccupied by sweeping through the train car. Her habit of seeking exits, which had fallen to the wayside sometime after Kotor, returns and Irene mentally berates herself for having let it slip at all.  
  
"All the more reason I make our next travel arrangements," she answers, running a finger along the heavy curtains. The illusion of privacy, but the curtains would hardly hide anything at all. "After all, I know what you like."

 

His lips twist into a slight smirk at that, and he gestures for her to sit across from him.  
  
"Yes," he says. "Though I doubt I will ever work out exactly what your preferences are, darling."

 

She glances up at the ways into the cabin before taking the seat across from his. There are entrances to the car in both directions, but there are no seats that would watch both at once. The best she can hope for is to watch one, and trust he would watch the other.  
  
And she does trust him to do that. If she were ever to admit it, she trusts him a great deal more than that though she knows she shouldn't.   
  
She smirks back, the delineation between the politician's wife and the Woman wavering. "It's a woman's prerogative to change her preferences. But you've managed a fair guess or two."

 

"I never guess," he replies immediately.  
  
He can't look both directions, but he can see down the hallway, towards where he deduces the group will select their cabin. A clear view of the walkway will make it significantly easier to get down there, to take his---or, perhaps, _her_ revenge.

 

"Then perhaps you should start. You may get lucky."  
  
The politician's wife remains a veneer; they are, for the moment, relatively alone, but the train is still boarding and a fellow passenger may wander past at a moment's notice. She splits her attention between the entrance she faces and his expression, watching for the hints in his face as to what can be seen down the opposite entrance.  
  
"Your meeting, it's with that envoy from Saudi Arabia, isn't it?"

 

"He has ties to England that need to be severed," Sherlock says, simply. "I think a few choice words should do that, don't you?"  
  
She is on edge. The way her eyes move, the way her attention isn't fixed on him---  
  
He goes to Dutch. His accent is English, his Dutch isn't perfect, but it's less likely to be understood. " _You never did tell me everything that happened._ "  
  
His present perfect is off, but the idea passes.

 

It is probably a testament to just how on edge she is, rather than to the state of his Dutch, that it takes her a moment to realize he's switched languages. Under any other circumstances, she supposes she would have laughed. His Dutch isn't as repulsive as he had claimed, but it was more than a bit obvious.  
  
She stumbles for a moment before catching herself. " _No, it isn't relevant._ "  
  
Hard to say whether she'd actually mistaken her tenses in that sentence.


	10. Traces of Blood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When he believed Irene Adler was dead, Sherlock Holmes had tracked down the surviving members of the terrorist cell that had held her prisoner in Karachi, intent on revenging himself upon them in his grief. But the Woman is not dead, and neither are the terrorists who knew her face. Will the past shatter the fragile trust Sherlock and Irene have built, or will they shatter the ghosts of the past in their wake?

The hand with the wedding band twitches, and Sherlock clenches and unclenches his fist, his mind working to think of what that means. Relevant could mean so _so_ many things. He looks over to where the men will be. He thinks of their major organs, shutting down, of breaking every bone in their hands. He thinks of hurting them, extensively.  
  
" _Isn't it?_ "

 

Her face is a mask, frozen into the faint, benign smile of her disguise, and she does not meet his eye, for a long time staring instead down the passageway, watching passengers board, then turning to do the same watching them outside the window.  
  
She does not tell him about her flight to Algeria, about her failed attempt to leverage favour from the terrorist group there who had benefited from the information about Bond Air. Nor does she tell him about the subsequent flight to Saudi Arabia, to Pakistan. Failures all. No doubt he knew she had been to all of those countries before her capture in Karachi. There was no need to admit them.  
  
And she refuses to tell him the details, because to do so would be to not only admit her failures but to remember the visceral fear and helplessness that had come with them all. The bruises, the injuries, all of the physical traces of that ordeal had healed and faded, but the memories remained and she was perfectly content to never relive them again.  
  
" _The results are the only thing that matter._ "

 

Sherlock often thought he could have been like Moriarty. Worse than Moriarty. He could've been his own serial killer, one that operated perfectly and meticulously. But what he lacked was the passion for the crime. He preferred the puzzle. He finds that the idea of killing the people in the other car is a passion that most serial killers must feel.  
  
" _They check tickets after we pass the first stop,_ " he tells her. " _Ten minutes, then I'll step out of the car for ten more."_

 

He drops the subject and only then does she turn away from the window to focus her attention on him again. And she is surprised by what she sees. There is a set to his jaw that she does not expect, a look in his eyes that is beyond simple conviction.  
  
A nod, as a voice comes over the announcement system calling for the last few passengers to finish boarding, that the train would be departing shortly. " _The one wearing the blue tie likes knife work. He'll have three on him, I expect_."

 

Sherlock nods. " _The one in the red sunglasses has a gun with a silencer, the bulge is unmistakable._ "  
  
Knife work. He imagines the Woman being questioned, the knife used to injure, but not to kill. What telltale scars did he miss on her? What didn't he see when he was memorizing her skin? How much that is so very obvious did he miss?  
  
" _The older one?_ "

 

Her scars are her weaknesses, and her weaknesses are her secrets. She keeps them even closer now, after London, after Bond Air. It helps, that most of them have faded away to near nothing, the only one that still lingers a long gash against her side, but even that has healed, for the most part.  
  
She wonders briefly if it is the same man who had wielded that particular knife, and her nails dig into her seat's armrest at the very thought. She shakes her head, forcing that particular bit of macabre speculation away. _It doesn't matter_ , she reminds herself.  
  
She shakes her head once more, in response to his question. " _I didn't get a good look._ "

 

She could easily manipulate him in this situation, he realizes. If she planned every word, every look, every twitch of muscle, his anger would rise as easily as if she'd pressed a button. But he has to believe this. He has to trust this, because he knows her well enough to know that this is not a ploy. Not a game. Not anymore.  
  
There is a loud bang of the engine, and the train starts moving. Sherlock remains perfectly still.

 

The train moves, slowly at first as it gains momentum, and Irene looks down at her left hand, the diamond on her finger winking harshly in the light, highlighting the white-knuckled grip she has on the armrest. It takes conscious thought to loosen her grip, and when she does she finds that it doesn't make the circumstances any better, doesn't make her feel any more in control.   
  
Neither of them are in control, she realizes. She is on edge and all of her considerable control is focused on forgetting about Karachi, on refusing to relive or even _think_ of the memories that are now threatening to break through the dam. She wants the dominatrix's armour again, but it is too dangerous to be herself, to be cold and untouchable.  
  
And he is seething. She has no other word for it. No other word to describe the way he sits silent, his body tense with terrible purpose.   
  
The train continues to pick up speed, and the landscape begins to blur by in silence. Eventually, she speaks, her voice flat, not even returning to the Dutch or the French. "You can gloat, you realize. I would have been better off not knowing who was on this train."

 

"I know," he says, all trace of accent gone from his own voice. "You don't need to worry, Woman. I'm going to remove them from the train."  
  
He considers the time, glancing at his watch and waiting for the girl to walk by and check their tickets. He could gloat, because he knew this would be a problem (granted, not nearly how much of a problem, but he knew it would be one), but he won't.  
  
"Gloating would be...irrelevant," he says.

 

"I'm not _worried_ ," she snaps back. The response is automatic, because she shouldn't be worried, isn't worried, that she is not concerned enough to _need_ to be worried.   
  
Lies. Fictions as armour, lies they tell themselves to remind themselves that they have not gotten so far under each other's skins to be worried, to be concerned. Like the lie that they will simply walk away from each other in Moscow.   
  
Lies that do nothing to dispel the knot in her stomach and the taste of sour fear at the back of her throat.   
She tries to think on Vienna, on what places she knows in Vienna, about the symphony conductor who fences stolen artwork, whom she is not certain had ever been part of Moriarty's network but who would be immensely useful in her own. But she cannot concentrate.  
  
"Better to say you'll wait until they're gone to gloat," she advises eventually as the announcement comes that they will be approaching their first stop within an hour, and the ticket taker will check passengers. "Otherwise I might think you actually don't want to revel in being right."

 

"I'm not worried either," he replies, easily. He wants to tell her there isn't anything _to_ worry about, but that sort of overconfidence is what got him captured by Moran earlier in the day. He's not about to make that mistake again.  
  
One of the men in the sunglasses passes their cabin, not even bothering to glance inside. Sherlock keeps his face towards the Woman, but his eyes follow the man as he heads towards the toilet.

 

Irene doesn't turn to look. Doesn't have to; she can read what he sees in his body language, in the way his face is carefully turned towards her but his eyes are riveted away and to her side. She turns her attention back outside. It is hard to tell, at the moment, if the train is already slowing or if it's simply her imagination.  
  
"One-on-one is far better odds than one against four, isn't it?" she asks. There is a tacit admission in that, one that she is certain he will hear and that she hates having to admit. That she can't help him at the moment, even if he asked.

 

Sherlock agrees, but the group of men will be waiting for him to come back. They may send one at a time to check on him. Bottleneck the group, take the last out slowly. He gives the Woman a nod, and gets to his feet.  
  
"I'll be back in a moment," he says, straightening his coat. "Hold my ticket for me."  
  
He turns to the door, pulling it open to step out.

 

"Only if you'll come back to claim it," she answers. She winces mentally at how _concerned_ that actually sounds, how she cannot make it sound as removed and detached as she'd like for it to. But perhaps there had been no chance of that to begin with.   
  
Her eyes sweep over him, and she can tell from a glance that he is unarmed. Her lips thin at the realization, but she rises anyway, turning away from him, to close the curtain against the other doorway, block line of sight for the other three. The sort of thing any well-to-do woman would, for privacy's sake. She nods, and a caution to be careful is on her tongue, but she swallows it back, instead moving to open the red leather suitcase, as if unpacking, looking for something in particular.  
  
"Go."

 

He hesitates. Not because he's concerned for himself, but he finds himself concerned for her. Concerned that she may try to run, may end up hurt. The Woman does not make stupid mistakes, he tells himself. She is the only Woman to ever beat him, and she'll do it again. She knows running would be stupid. She won't. At the same time---  
  
No. No, he won't hesitate. He gives her a nod, and steps out of the cabin, walking immediately towards the toilets. There is no one else in the hallway, yet, and he has plenty of time to get to the man before anyone catches him. As he nears the door, it opens. The man's sunglasses are on his head, and his eyes widen as he sees Sherlock's face. He may not have recognized him from a distance, but there is no mistaking someone who infiltrated his ranks.  
  
There is silence down the hallway, and Sherlock jams the toilet's door before he walks back down the hallway, blood under his fingernails.

 

She doesn't run, because she knows there is nowhere to run _to_. That is an easier thought to swallow, an easier thing to accept, than to think she is paralyzed by fear, than to think that she trusts him to do this.  
  
And his question rises, unbidden, in her mind.  
 _Do you ever wonder if there's something wrong with us?_  
  
She doesn't wonder. It's obvious there is. But if there wasn't, they wouldn't be who they are. And she likes them this way far more than any other possibility.  
  
Damage and all.  
  
Still, by the time he returns, she is pacing, her luggage unzipped, obviously in a state of mid-seeking, but she is pacing none the less.  
  
Her eyes go immediately to his face, then to his hands, and with a sharp, barely perceptible nod, a minute tension leeches out of the set of her shoulders.

 

He moves his arm, gesturing to where the gun with the silencer now sits in his pocket. Not that he has any real intention to use it. That sort of a weapon is far too... _simple_ a death for these men. He's going to leave it for the Woman.  
  
He shuts the cabin door behind himself.  
  
"Are you all right?" he asks her.

 

There are very few things guaranteed to irritate her, but Sherlock Holmes has an uncanny knack to stumble onto every single one of them. This time was no exception and she glares at him for the question.  
  
"The politician's wife may be at a loss without him," she tells him tartly. " _I_ can manage being out of your sights."  
  
It is only after the words are out of her mouth that she considers that he may have done it on purpose. The faintest of smiles at that.

 

"Of course you can," he says. He steps to the side, by where the curtain blocks them from the sight of any onlookers. He pulls the weapon out of his pocket and tucks it into the luggage she's opened. He looks back to the door, waiting for others to come down the aisle. None do.

 

Her pacing brings her next to him, and she nods her acknowledgment as he tucks the pistol and silencer into her luggage. She glances up at the curtain and, judging that no one else would be interrupting them for a moment or two, disassembles the two, checks it, and reassembles it, draping it beneath a light flounce of skirt. Within reach but out of sight.  
  
"Blood under your nails," she murmurs, nodding at his hands. "Not enough to leave a fingerprint, I expect."

 

"Of course not," he says. He gives her a slight smile. "And DNA is only as good as the records they keep.

 

The corner of her mouth pulls upward at his words despite herself.   
  
The train begins to slow, and she shuts the luggage, setting it at the foot of her seat, within easy reach. She brushes past him, all deliberate barely there touches, in order to slip back onto her seat.   
  
"Next thing I know, you'll tell me you know the record keeper."

 

"I wouldn't pretend to know what he likes."  
  
He remembers the conversation she had with John so vividly, even now. After days convinced she was dead, her voice came through like breaking glass echoing in the plant where she met John. Sherlock had been so focused on the fact that she was speaking at all, he nearly forgot to listen to her words.  
  
His phone makes a noise, and he looks down. He's being judged for his inability to appear, Navid says.  
  
"I suppose I'm being summoned."

 

The familiar exchange had momentarily allowed her to ignore the reality of the Saudi terrorists on board, but at his words her jaw tenses. She reminds herself of the pistol now in her luggage and manages a short laugh.

"I remember when you weren't so easily summoned."

 

"The longer I wait, the more impatient they get," he says. "I want them to know who it is approaching them. And why."  
  
He undoes the buckle on one of his pieces of luggage, removing the thick metallic chain from the leather handle and stuffing it into his pocket.  
  
There is a rap on the door. The girl checking tickets.

 

"Is that why you ignored my--"  
  
The rap of knuckles against the doorway, crisp but from a soft hand, professional. Irene turns sharply towards it, and her expression is far more like herself than it had been since she'd learned who else was on the train.  
  
This she could handle, this she was familiar with. She gives him a sharp nod, gesturing to the other way out of their section of the car. She switches easily to Dutch, holding out her hand for his ticket. " _I'll make your excuses, but don't keep me waiting._ "

 

He puts his ticket into her hand. His expression is his own, face still with emotions he doesn't quite understand and probably never will.  
  
" _I don't love you,_ " he reminds her.  
  
With that, he turns to pass the girl and go down the hallway towards terrorists he's ready to kill.

 

She nearly stops him, because for a moment cold fear worms its way back into her mind, for a moment his parting words sound far too much like a goodbye. But she doesn't, she _won't_ , because to do so is to admit too much, to change his plan now would be more dangerous.  
  
A part of her knows he will do exactly what he's planned, that there will be four less men leaving this train alive.  
  
And she is vicious, vindictive, and yes _scared_ enough to want it to happen.  
  
She says nothing in response, instead giving the girl (late twenties, French Canadian, with a penchant for reading romance novels and rescuing stray animals in her spare time) the two tickets, murmuring something inconsequential in American-tinged French to explain her husband's abrupt exit.  
  
She keeps the girl talking for a minute, expecting the longer of a lead she gives Sherlock, the better.

 

Sherlock counts the doors until he stops in front of the curtained cabin containing the terrorists. He straightens his suit, and pulls the cabin door open.  
  
"We've already shown our tickets!" one of them snaps before Sherlock pushes the curtain aside. He shuts the door and turns back to them. As he turns, he pushes the curtain back, blocking them from the outside world.   
  
He immediately reads them. One, armed with a knife. One, armed with a small handgun. The rest of their weapons are in their luggage. Stolen diamonds, stolen gold. Even one of them has clearly stolen his sunglasses. Men who used to have money but didn't anymore.  
  
"Jim left you with nothing," Sherlock says. They straighten instantly, no longer lounging but ready for a fight. Sherlock's hand in his pocket goes around the chain.  
  
"You know Moriarty?" one of them asks. Navid, Sherlock assumes. Clearly in control of the situation.  
  
"Oh, yes," Sherlock says. "And I'm here to clean up his web."


	11. Catharsis in a Bullet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On a train with the last four terrorists who had been associated with Irene Adler's death in Karachi, will Irene find herself paralyzed by fear, or will she avenge herself on the mistake Sherlock made? But does it matter which she chooses?

The noise of the moving train, of passengers standing, sitting, moving about their business, all of it was irritating, but for the moment it serves a purpose, and even as she strains to hear signs of what is going on several doors down, she is relieved that she cannot hear more than an occasional bump that could be anything from a body hitting the ground to a piece of jostled luggage.  
  
She chats with the young woman, making idle conversation. The young woman's eyes light up when she speaks of travel, and the tedium of her job sloughs away as Irene mentions Paris, Rome. A romantic and not only in her taste for novels. Irene chats with her, allows her to check the two tickets in her hand, and sends the young woman off again, in the opposite direction Sherlock had gone. She sits back down in her seat and listens for a noise she cannot hear, and contemplates pacing again.  
  
Instead, she takes the stolen pistol out of her luggage.

 

The gun is on the ground. One of the men is near it, dead or unconscious from a blow to the head, and Sherlock has the other up against the side of the window. The chain is around his knuckles, and he is repeatedly punching this man---Navid---in the face. It's cathartic, he tells himself. No, no, that means he needs to get this out of his own system, not simply clean the web out for the Woman.  
  
The other man throws up his hand with the knife, and Sherlock has just enough time to block the weapon from coming towards his throat. He has no choice but to release Navid as he struggles, stumbling and eventually falling backwards over the gun.

 

It isn't that her fear subsides with passing moments. More that her mind is capable of playing out more scenarios, of the myriad ways this particular collection of pieces, of circumstances, could go awry. And at the moment, her mind is unable to stop playing through every permutation of what could happen in a semi-private train car, with three men, at least one of whom was well armed and who took his pleasures from pain, against one armed with significantly less weaponry and more anger.  
  
She considers it, and rises. The disguise of the demure politician's wife has been eroding steadily, and it slips away even more with the pistol in her hand. She holds it against her side and moves towards the door, peering out the curtain.  
  
Meanwhile, Navid Al-Baker, the head of this particular cell of the AQAP, looks dazed, glassy-eyed for a moment as he finds himself suddenly released as his companion with the knives struggles with their attacker, the man behind the text messages in the dark. Navid coughs, wipes blood from his nose, and snaps something to his companion.  
  
" _Get him down. He's not working alone._ "

 

Sherlock doesn't speak Arabic very well. He learned a few choice phrases before arriving in Karachi, and a few commands he knew he'd be issued. He understands _working alone_ , but the rest is a mystery to him. He can tell from the tone it's a command.  
  
The man he's struggling with manages to get Sherlock under him, knife towards his throat. Sherlock focuses, noticing the scar on the side of the man's face. Jaw broken once before. Solid punch to that area will break it again, perhaps cause severe internal bleeding.  
  
He throws his legs up, knocking them both towards the seat. Sherlock's temple hits the seat, but not with too much force. The man above him's jaw hits it with a sickening, satisfying _crack._

 

The man cries out in surprise and pain, though the sound is muffled by his suddenly broken jaw, and drops the knife in his hand. Navid is still scrambling for the gun, and at his companion's cry his hand closes on the gun and he raises it towards Sherlock. "Don't move," he snaps, his hand trembling.

 

Sherlock's hand goes around the knife just as the gun comes up, pointed at his head.  
  
They're frozen, here. Sherlock unwilling to move, Navid unable to get away without turning his back on Sherlock.  
  
"I don't know what you did to her," Sherlock says. "But you're not leaving this train alive."

 

There's a momentary lull in the noise of the train, just long enough for Irene to catch the sharp cry that is neither the low murmur of inconsequential speech or regular travel noise. Her grip is tight on the pistol, and she holds it carefully at her side, concealed among the folds of her skirt, as she slips out of the cabin and down the narrow corridor.  
  
A gleam of dark satisfaction lights in Navid's eyes at Sherlock's answer, and his hand steadies on the gun. "So this _is_ about the bitch," he says, "And they were all saying this was about the Spider."

 

"He's dead," Sherlock replies. "But she isn't."  
  
He's heard the Woman called far worse. In moments of extreme frustration, he's certain he's heard John call her _that bitch_ at least once before. But it never infuriated him, not like this. Perhaps because he knows John didn't mean it. Or perhaps because Sherlock has respect for John, while he has nothing but loathing for the man holding the gun to him.

 

Navid's eyes widen at the revelation, but to his credit his grip tightens on the gun in his hand, and his lips curl into a sneer, the blood from his beating giving him a look of absolute savagery. His eyes watch Sherlock's, and it would be hard to miss the look of realization as he connects the dots.  
  
He's slow, but he isn't quite as stupid as his moaning companions.  
  
"That little blonde? She cleans up nicer than I thought." He bares his teeth at Sherlock. "Might let my friends have some fun with her after I'm done with you."  
  
In the hall, Irene is able to catch the last of his words, and without sight she can tell the gloating, goading note in the other man's voice. She swallows, forces her hand to steady on her own pistol.

 

Sherlock's eyes go hard, cold.  
  
"No," he says. "But when I'm finished with you, they'll be finding your body for weeks."

 

From the other side of the door, Irene curses silently at his response.  
  
Navid, on the other hand, smiles widely, stepping away from Sherlock and towards the door. Behind Sherlock, the man who liked knives and currently sported a broken jaw, is slowly, silently getting back to his feet despite the obvious pain he was in.  
  
"Easy to say, Lover Boy," Navid sneers, purposely not looking at his companion getting into position as he takes another step towards the doorway. "But the Americans have a saying, that you brought a knife to a gunfight. I'll give the bitch your regards when I'm done with her."

 

"And you're waiting for backup that's never going to come," Sherlock says. "I was hoping for a well-timed scream to inform you that your friend with the gun isn't coming out of the toilet, sorry."  
  
He looks down. He might be able to toss the knife, get it embedded into the man's foot, and struggle for the gun.

  
Behind him, though, he can see a flash of the outside beneath the curtain. A slim, feminine ankle.  
  
"Your other problem is that you've seen me as the white knight here to defend her honor," he says. "But I'm not a hero, they don't exist. And I'm fairly certain she can defend her own honor quite well, don't you?"

 

While the terrorists within might be confused by his words, she understands his meaning immediately, and in her mind Irene Adler calls Sherlock Holmes an absolutely imaginative range of unflattering names. The idea of ignoring his veiled request for assistance doesn't occur to her, and it is all she can do to steel her nerves and step into the room, her expression cold and blank.

"He'd tell you I don't have honour to defend. I prefer to call it revenge," she says, her own gun pointed at Navid.

Her presence surprises the terrorists; she can see it in the way Navid jerks, but the knife-wielder with the broken jaw recovers first, and one of his hands clamps on Sherlock's wrist as if to keep him from using the knife, and the other attempts to cover Sherlock's mouth.

"Behind you!" she tries to warn him.

 

Sherlock lets out a grunt as the man's hand clamps over his mouth, and he raises up his wrist to block the inevitable knife coming at him. He grips onto the man's wrist and twists. A slow twist, involving digging the thumb and forefinger between the radius and the ulna. Pressure is applied against the styloid process. The bones of the arm break.

There are breaks that are efficient. Bone breaks that take only seconds and immobilize, allow the other person involved to get away. This break is not one of those breaks. Sherlock doesn't have to look to know that the man's face is twisted in agony, and while his knife drops, he doesn't simply fall away, he grips at Sherlock's face, as though he could stop the pressure of his fingers against his bones.

Sherlock keeps applying pressure, but his eyes move up, to watch the Woman and the man with the gun.

 

Navid Al-Baker is not a face Irene Adler remembers from Pakistan, or Algeria, or Saudi Arabia, but at the same time he is every face she forced herself to forget. Her expression is frozen, but there is a wild look in her eyes as her eyes meet his, and before his expression changes to recognition, the silencer has already whispered twice. Two shots center of mass.  
  
She lowers her hand, aims at the abdomen, and pulls the trigger again. A third shot, that one particularly painful. Only then does she look up, finger still on the trigger, to aim for the man grappling with Sherlock.  
  
The arch, dismissive tone she'd used to announce her presence is gone, and her voice is flat as she asks, "Rather I cleaned up?"

 

Sherlock gives one final twist, and the arm snaps. The man starts to cry out, and Sherlock clamps his own hand over his mouth.

"Please," he says to her, as calmly as though she'd asked if he wanted more salt at dinner.

 

Despite his agony, the man's eyes widen as he attempts to protest beneath Sherlock's hand over his mouth, but she squeezes the trigger once and he jerks backwards with the momentum of the bullet in his head.  
  
Only then does she lower the gun, does she take her finger off the trigger. She feels strangely numb, though half an hour ago she would have given anything to feel numb, to not have fear crawling its way up her throat or worry down her spine.  
  
But now it feels strange to be this numb, to watch them with wide eyes that are almost glassy. A part of her thinks she may be in shock, but the rest of her is too numb to think whether this was true or false or an idiotic suggestion.  
  
"Messier than you intended, I expect."  
  
She offers him the pistol; it would be easier to hide on his clothes than hers. She doesn't even realize her hand trembles.

 

"Only just," he admits.

He checks the throat of the last man, finds no pulse, and gets to his feet. When he turns back, she's still standing there, offering the pistol. Her hand is shaking, and her eyes are strangely blank. He takes the weapon and pulls the curtain back, just enough for them to step out.

"Back to our seats," he says. "I think they were being quite honest when they said that the cabins were soundproof."

 

It isn't the act of killing the man at point blank that stuns her; it is, after all, neither the first time, nor the last, that Irene Adler would. It is the realization of coming face-to-face with a fear that she refuses to name, of defeating it, and the knowledge there is no absolution, no catharsis upon vanquishing it.  
  
It is foolish to think that there would be, but she is used to making the world dance, to making it bend to her considerable will. The fact that she cannot make her own mind do the same...  
  
He no doubt would expect some sort of wry quip in response, some dry mention of the plan gone awry, of needing his own rescue, but she is still oddly, pleasantly numb.  
  
He pushes the curtain back just enough to step out and she slips past him, heading for their own cabin. She says nothing until she is back within, and even then she stares out the window.  
  
"Did you expect that to be cathartic?"

 

The question is not one he expects as he shuts the door and closes the curtain to their cabin. It will be most of the trip before the bodies are found, he imagines, unless someone chooses to force the toilet.

The question, though. Cathartic. Yes, he did think it would be. And, in a way, it was. Eliminating the men who hurt the Woman. Causing them pain. Even having the Woman come in to finish two of them off, that felt...good. Right, to him.

He blinks in her direction. "Not good?" he asks.

 

His own question, with the note of barely noticeable confusion in his voice, as if he hadn't expected hers, forces a tiny ripple of _something_ through the numbness she feels (or does not feel).  
  
"Can you think of someone less qualified to judge that than me," she answers, turning back to face him. Her eyes are a bit more focused now, and she seems to actually _see_ him. She gestures to him, then clenches her hands again. Her fingers have not quite stopped trembling. "None of the blood is yours," _I hope_. Sentimental. "--I trust?"

 

No, he supposes she's not the best to ask. John Watson would know what was _good_ and _not good_ , because John always knows. Sherlock reaches up to remove the cloth from his breast pocket, and he begins wiping down his hands. Apart from a few scrapes, it appears to be clean. He sees a fair cut across his palm from the chain, but he dismisses it.  
  
"I should be fine," he says. "Though that's twice you've had to come save me, Woman. I'm going to begin to owe you at this point."  
  
An attempt at humor. Poor, but he's attempting.

 

"Twice?" she echoes, sounding offended. "It's been considerably more than _that_ , Mr. Holmes."

 

He makes a face.  
  
"Twice in the last twenty-four hours."

 

Her smile this time is real, and if he had been anyone else, she might have suspected that he'd said what he did simply to shake her out of the numbness that had overtaken her.  
  
She takes her seat again, curling her feet beneath her, her eyes still on him. "You should have specified it the first time."

 

He tucks the cloth into his side pocket, content with how clean his hands look. He wonders if he should feel a metaphorical sense of dirtied hands, but he doesn't. Further proof, he thinks, of how very like Jim he could've been if he'd stepped in that direction even a little more.  
  
"Once we're safely on the plane, I'll text Mycroft to clean this situation up," he says. "He won't be able to follow us."

 

Irene runs a hand through the locks of her blonde wig, making a noise of distaste at the mention of Mycroft Holmes. She doesn't ask him why he contacted the now-dead terrorists. Doesn't, because the vicious way he dispatched the man with the knife tells her everything she needs to know.  
  
"Best to finish the trip disguise intact, I suppose." She raises an eyebrow, a hint of a smile on her lips. She seems, for all intents and purposes, utterly back to herself again. "Unless you'd prefer us remaining completely alone."

 

"If only we could," he says. "I imagine anything we'd attempt to do on this trip will end up being cut short with the sound of someone discovering our dear departed."  
  
He gives the curtain a brief tug aside, so he can look out to the hallway.  
  
"Though I will admit---" He turns to look back at her. "I don't prefer the blonde."

 

She tilts her head to catch a glimpse of the corridor outside their cabin, but he is (perhaps purposely) in her way. Irene raises an eyebrow at his comment. "Is it the blonde or the personality that comes with it that you don't prefer?" she asks.

 

"Primarily the personality," he admits. "Though you've not quite got down the eyes. You'll give yourself away every time."

 

She should feel irritated by his observation, by not being able to fool him so completely, but instead all that she feels is an unexpected warmth. Uncurling from her seat, Irene rises to her feet and steps towards him. Her hands are still, steady again, and there is nothing of the shrinking politician's bride in her carriage.  
  
"Then it's a good thing I don't plan on using that disguise again."

 

He remains in his seat, watching her warily. He has long since given up on the concept of empathy, at least in relation to himself, but he does long for the ability to understand her. To know what it is about now that makes her hands steady, when handing him the pistol they shook.  
  
"No, I think I would find you within only a few moments of our holiday," he says. "Unless you perfected it in our time apart."

 

Their holiday. The holidays that they would have after this, after Vienna, after Moscow. After he returned from the dead and she became Persephone. She can admit, at least to herself, that she looks forward to the idea.  
  
"So certain you'd want me to perfect it?" she asks. "The implication would be that I'd have found someone who plays the domineering husband better."

 

"Are you implying I would feel jealous?" he asks, raising an eyebrow. The very idea comes to him as silly. He has nothing to feel jealous over when it comes to the Woman. The emotion, he thinks, might feel interesting if it were to come to him, but he has yet to experience it with her.

 

She reaches over and takes his hand, cool long fingers tracing along the cut in his palm from the chain. "Not at all. I know you'd be irritated at the idea that I've found someone better at disguising himself than you."  
  
And perhaps, that was, in a sense the only sort of jealousy they were capable of.

 

"Unless you actually did find a dominating man who couldn't read you," Sherlock replies. He looks away from her eyes, down to where her fingertips trace the cut in his palm. It stings, but he's not about to pull away. He finds that right now he wants to have her, right here in the cabin, which he supposes is entirely inappropriate given the circumstances.  
  
Although it would be illogical and ridiculous, he does wish John could be somewhere nearby, so Sherlock could ask about what is _good_ and _Not Good_ about his thoughts.

 

He looks down to their touching hands, nearly hiding the slight dilation in his eyes that give away his thoughts, but she remains watching him.  
  
"Hardly. You know I'd disabuse any idiot of that particular notion long before I could manage to use him."

 

"Yes," Sherlock agrees. "You would."  
  
He reaches his other hand up to touch her face, where the pale lipstick and blonde curls can't completely conceal the dominatrix within. She is a mystery that will never completely unravel, and he imagines if he could peel away every visible layer, there would always be something beneath that would keep him guessing.  
  
He will have to ask John if that is what love is.


End file.
